The jailed Kurdish leader stressed that this would not save the Turkish president from defeat after two decades in power.
THE imprisoned Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas stated that the attempt to ban his leftist party is part of Tayyip Erdogan’s plans to cause ‘chaos’ in the Turkish opposition ahead of this year’s electionsbut emphasized that this will not save the president from defeat after two decades in power.
Speaking to Reuters from a prison in Edirne in northwestern Turkey, Demirtas called on Turkey’s main opposition coalition to work with his party, the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP), to win the presidential and parliamentary elections. parliamentary elections expected to take place in May.
However, the HDP’s future is far from certain: a prosecutor is seeking to shut down the party, accusing it of ties to Kurdish militants, capping a years-long crackdown on the third-largest party in the Turkish parliament.
Demirtas, who is no longer the party’s leader but remains a major political figure despite being in prison since 2016, said Erdogan and his nationalist partner, Devlet Bakhceli, were behind the legal moves to the closure of the HDP.
“The goal of these two is to win the elections by creating a vacuum and chaos in the opposition, weakening the HDP before the elections,” Demirtas said in his written answers to questions sent to him through the HDP, describing the timing of the case as a “conscious political choice”.
The government maintains that the Turkish courts are independent and denies that there is any political interference. Asked about Demirtas’ claims, Erdogan’s office declined to comment, but a senior official said: “It’s very interesting that he’s talking about chaos, considering the history of the HDP. The surveys do not say at all that ‘Erdogan is losing’. These statements seem completely unfounded.”
Repression
Critics of Erdogan’s government, including Human Rights Watch, say the Turkish president is using the courts to silence political opponents.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled three years ago that Turkey must immediately release Demirtas, underlining that his imprisonment is aimed at limiting pluralism and debate.
Turkey’s Constitutional Court opened the case against the HDP in 2021, drawing sharp criticism from Ankara’s Western allies. This month the court voted by a narrow majority to freeze the HDP’s bank accounts while it examines accusations against the party over ties to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The HDP denies the accusations.
Demirtas was previously sentenced to three years in prison for insulting the president and now remains in prison facing a life sentence in an ongoing trial along with more than 100 other HDP politicians accused of inciting the 2014 protests in which dozens of people lost their lives. The defendants deny the charges.
In addition to the imprisonment of Demirtas and other party officials, many HDP members of parliament and party mayors have been suspended, while thousands of its members have been imprisoned.
If not banned, the HDP, whose core supporters are Kurdish, is likely to play a moderator role in the elections.
Polls show the main opposition bloc is neck-and-neck with the ruling coalition but needs the support of HDP voters to defeat Erdogan, whose popularity has been hit by the poor state of the economy in recent years.
“Even if Erdogan puts pressure on the voters, even if he tries to use tricks, he cannot avoid defeat,” Demirtas said. “A vast majority of people have lost their trust and faith in Erdogan and it is impossible for him to win them back.”
“We are the people”
Before the election, Demirtas’ Twitter account posted daily political messages to his more than 2 million followers. A song he wrote was played Sunday at an HDP rally in Istanbul, where thousands chanted his name and held the party’s red, yellow and green flags.
“We are not just an institution and a building. We are the people. You can’t shut down the people,” said Ferhat Eçu, a former HDP lawmaker who was jailed in 2016 with Demirtas.
Saruhan Oluç, one of the top HDP officials at the rally, said the party was preparing for the possibility of being banned, but added, without elaborating, that it would not leave its voters without alternatives.
The HDP last week requested that the judicial process be postponed until after the elections to preserve democratic principles.
Demirtas said he believes the court will not shut down the HDP because it will not want to interfere in politics.
The HDP, which has allied itself with smaller left-wing parties that took part in Sunday’s rally, maintains an uneasy relationship with the most nationalist elements of Turkey’s six opposition parties.
The party currently plans to nominate its own presidential candidate, but Demirtas does not rule out backing a joint opposition candidate against Erdogan.
Asked about his own future when he is released from prison, Demirtas stated that he does not wish to return to the front line of party politics: “For me, the page of active representative politics closed a long time ago. I’m just still fighting.”
RES-EMP
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