DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – As Turkey’s June 7 parliamentary elections approach, many eyes are on the large number of Kurdish voters.
Kurds, who are estimated to comprise 20 percent of Turkey’s 78 million population, have the numbers to swing elections. But instead of rallying behind their pro-Kurdish parties, many voters continue to back the ruling Justice and Democratic Party (AKP), scattering the Kurdish vote.
Huseyin Seyhanlioglu, associate professor at Diyarbakir’s Dicle University, estimates that up to 40 percent of Kurdish voters traditionally cast their ballots for the AKP, the very institution that the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and other like parties are fighting for greater rights.
He says that some Kurdish voters continue to be lured by the AKP’s conservative Islamic values.
”AKP focuses on religion, and in Islam Turks and Kurds are equal,” Seyhanlioglu says, explaining the thinking of some voters.
The AKP’s Islamic face appeals to Kurds like Cetin, who works at a clothing store in Diyarbakir, Turkey’s Kurdish capital. She describes herself as a devout Muslim who, like her three sisters, observes the hijab.
Cetin says that, thanks to the AKP and its former leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan who is now Turkey’s president, she is looking to attend university after summer to study philosophy – a chance denied to an elder sister who could not gain entrance because of laws banning Islamic headscarves in universities.
“Since it was forbidden to enter university with hijab, my sister could not study," Leyla says.
The majority of Kurds in Turkey are Muslims, and many are conservative. When Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 a religious rule was replaced by a secular system. Under it, women were banned from wearing headscarves or other forms of hijab in public, and the mosque calls to prayer were forbidden.
Following its rise to power in 2002, the AKP fought the ban, and in 2008 an amendment allowed women to wear headscarves at universities.
"Thanks to the AKP and President Erdogan, I can both study and wear the veil," Leyla beams.
While many Kurds still widely complain of insufficient reforms on the Kurdish issue by successive AKP governments, they still credit the party with pushing through some legislative changes.
They include the opening of a Kurdish TV channel in 2009. And in 2013, Erdogan announced a ”democracy package” which, among other things, gave the Kurds the right to Kurdish education at private schools.
Earlier this year, the government declared that the first Kurdish-language university would open soon in Diyarbakir, where hospitals have been providing services in Kurdish for the first time.
“Though it is not sufficient, it's much better than under previous governments, " says Seyhanlioglu.
At local elections, most municipalities in Turkey’s southeastern heartland are won by the HDP or the Democratic Regions Party (BDP). But Kurds are very geographically scattered, millions living in western Turkey and often voting for other parties.
While many Kurds vote for the pro-Kurdish parties because of their ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), there are others who remain opposed to the PKK’s hardline, Stalinist style.
AKP’s success against the military – removing it out of politics -- helped the party gain greater support among Kurds. In 2007, AKP introduced the first draft constitution written entirely by civilians.
"Reducing the military’s role is an advantage for the Kurds, because they have suffered a lot during military rule," says Seyhanlioglu.
In the 1990s, more than 3,000 villages and farm settlements in the Kurdish regions were emptied by the military and its inhabitants forcibly evacuated, in a bid to deny shelter to the PKK, which is engaged in peace talks with the AKP after three decades of fighting the state for greater rights.
The Turkish economy has also come a long way during Erdogan's decade in power, boosting the AKP’s popularity, including among Kurds. According to Seyhanlioglu, AKP has won popularity by spending lavishly on roads, schools and different social services across the country, including in the Kurdish southeast.
"AKP secured help for poor families and scholarships, so that children could attend schools," Seyhanlioglu noted.
In Diyarbakir, shoe salesman Mahmut Turan is among those who does not support the AKP. He thinks that Erdogan and his former party’s promises of greater rights to Kurds are insufficient, and that the ruling party has a hidden agenda.
“AKP is always talking about freedom. But for AKP, individual freedom means freedom of religious expression, nothing else,” Turan says.
Professor Abbas Vali from Bogazici University in Istanbul agrees that a “significant number” of Kurds vote for the AKP, but insists that the majority do not.
He says the AKP’s reforms still have long to go, and that Kurds are especially hurt by not being able to have their children learn their language at public schools.
“Kurds who can’t afford to send their children to private schools can’t learn their language,” he notes.
He explains that one way the Kurds are kept politically behind is by the AKP’s refusal to to lower the 10 percent electoral threshold in parliament, preventing the main pro-Kurdish parties from being represented at the a national level.
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