LONDON – One consequence of the victory of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP party in Turkey’s local elections might be to reinforce an alliance of convenience with pro-autonomy Kurdish politicians who also boosted their representation in the country’s southeast.
Prime Minister Erdogan’s AKP – the Justice and Development Party – and the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) were regional rivals in Sunday’s elections in which the AKP won more than 45 per cent of votes nationwide. But that does not mean that they do not share common interests in the face of common enemies.
Turkey’s traditional secular and nationalist parties came a poor second to the AKP after an election campaign that was dominated by Mr. Erdogan’s bitter power struggle with the Gulen movement, an erstwhile Islamic ally he claimed was conspiring to unseat him.
In a victory speech, in which Mr. Erdogan showed no signs of easing up in the battle with the Gulenists, he accused his enemies of treachery and threatened to root them out of public life.
The informal political movement inspired by Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Islamic preacher, is widely viewed as hostile to Kurdish autonomy and the extension of Kurdish cultural rights, despite the denials of its spiritual leader that he opposes the government’s peace process with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey’s Kurds are similarly suspicious of the country’s traditional secular, nationalist elite which historically sought to suppress even modest demands for minority rights.
From a Kurdish perspective, therefore, Mr. Erdogan’s survival may appear to be the least bad option.
An electorally strengthened Mr. Erdogan at least has an opportunity to revive a peace process that stalled in recent months as he fought back against swelling corruption allegations and opposition-inspired leaks.
Among those leaks were recordings that purported to expose a secret pre-election deal between the ruling party and Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed PKK leader, to grant Kurdish autonomy. The prime minister’s opponents tried to use the leaks to show that he was not to be trusted on the Kurdish issue.
Mr. Ocalan meanwhile effectively endorsed the prime minister in a pre-election Newroz message in which he stressed the importance of his dialogue with the government and said it had tested the goodwill of both sides. It is a dialogue that was initiated by Mr. Erdogan and in which BDP politicians have been active as go-betweens.
The question now is whether a reinvigorated Mr. Erdogan will seek to revive the dialogue or will remain preoccupied with battling his domestic enemies ahead of a possible bid for the presidency in the first direct elections for the post later this year.
The successful candidate will require a clear 50 per cent plus one majority at the end of two rounds of voting in August. That is a margin of some five per cent higher than the victorious AKP secured in Sunday’s local elections.
Kurdish votes in the southeast could help to make up the shortfall. However, the willingness of Kurds to back Mr. Erdogan is likely to depend on how far he is prepared to go towards meeting their aspirations in the intervening months.
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