ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s electoral body on Tuesday instated the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) candidate as mayor of the Kurdish city of Van after an earlier court ruling invalidated the candidacy of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) candidate, who won the race in Sunday’s local elections.
DEM Party announced on Tuesday that five minutes before the end of working hours on Friday, the Turkish justice ministry objected to Van’s court’s decision to reinstate party’s Van candidate Abdullah Zeydan’s suspended rights, with the chief prosecutor’s office appealing to the court to revoke the decision on the same day, rendering his candidacy invalid.
The Van office of the country’s electoral body (YSK) on Tuesday ruled that Zeydan was not eligible to take part in the elections, and handed the mayoralty of the Kurdish city to the AKP candidate Abdulahat Arvas, who garnered the second-highest number of votes.
“We reject the decision of the Van Provincial Election Board to award the certificate of election to the AKP mayoral candidate for the metropolitan municipality of Van, which our party won by a large margin,” the DEM Party stated on X.
“The decision made by the rigged members of Van’s provincial election board with a majority vote is unlawful, illegitimate, and a decision that disregards the will of the people,” added the statement noting that party lawyers already appealed the decision.
“The recent decision is null and void. Zeydan should receive his certificate [declaring his win in the vote] today, and if they fail to provide it, we will initiate the necessary legal process,” Zeydan’s lawyer Mahsuni Karaman told the Turkish news outlet Gazete Duvar, warning that more similar actions might be taken against DEM Party’s elected candidates and provincial council members.
The opposition’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel slammed the decision in a video message on X, labeling it a “disgrace” and an “ambush against the will” of the people of Van.
“If the people of Van elect someone as their mayor by voting three times more [than his rival], then It is our duty to be respectful of this,” Ozel said.
The CHP leader noted that appointing the AKP candidate as mayor contradicts what President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday night following the vote when he stated that the party respect the outcomes of the elections.
“I warn him [Erdogan] that stooping to such a thing will render all his words null and void,” Ozel said.
The pro-Kurdish party picked former member of parliament Zeydan to run for the mayoralty of the city of Van as one of its co-candidates, together with Neslihan Sedal, in Turkey’s local elections on Sunday. The party won the province by a landslide, as its candidates emerged victorious across all of the province’s 13 districts, and Zeydan won the metropolitan municipality's mayoralty.
Zeydan, who was arrested in November 2016 and remained in prison for terror-related charges until January 2023, was given a “reinstatement of suspended rights,” meaning clearance to take part in elections, from a Van court in 2022.
According to preliminary results of Sunday’s polls, the DEM party garnered 5.7 percent of the overall votes across the country. The party won the mayoralty of Van as well as nine more Kurdish provinces in the country’s southeast.
In the 2019 local elections, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), DEM Party’s sister party won the mayoralty in eight provinces, only to see dozens of elected pro-Kurdish mayors ousted from office and replaced with state-linked trustees over the years, due to their alleged links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Protests were held in Van province and other Kurdish provinces, condemning the elimination of Zeydan's candidacy. Some demonstrations turned into violence.
