In the 2019 Istanbul local elections the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), DEM Party’s sister party, decided not to field candidates in the western provinces of Turkey, resulting in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) losing the provinces to the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), marking the first time in 15 years that the AKP lost in Ankara and Istanbul. However, this policy has long changed, as the party decided to run with their own candidates in every province of Turkey for these elections.
“DEM party represents the third way, actually trying to find solutions to everyone's problems and respond to everyone's demands. Our decision in the 2019 election was different, today is different,” Meral Danis Bestas, DEM Party’s co-candidate for the mayoralty of Istanbul told Rudaw English following a meeting with voters at an education syndicate in Istanbul.
Istanbul has a large Kurdish population, however, according to Bestas, the votes of the Kurdish electorate are not the only target on the radar of her party.
“Everyone living in Istanbul is our target electorate. We don't discriminate among voters. But of course, the overwhelming majority of our voters are Kurdish people. And of course, there are millions of Kurds living in Istanbul. But we have never made a call for only Kurds to vote for us,” said Bestas.
Bestas claimed that by representing a third way, they are becoming the voice of the oppressed people in the city. This claim was supported by Naciye Duman, a Kurdish Alevi woman from the Kurdish city of Dersim, residing in Istanbul.
“There is an oppressed community. There is a community that is unseen because of their language, because of their culture,” Duman told Rudaw English, explaining why she would be voting for the DEM Party’s candidate by recounting her experience of being discriminated against for being Kurdish.
“They [DEM Party] need to be everywhere, on every platform, and in the parliament to represent us,” she said.
According to the Turkish electoral commission, 49 candidates will vie for the Istanbul mayoralty in March, as 22 parties fielded candidates and 27 others will compete independently. AKP fielded Murat Kurum, Turkey’s former environment minister, as candidate mayor of Istanbul, to compete against incumbent mayor Ekrem Imamoglu from the CHP. The DEM Party fielded Bestas and Murat Cepni as co-candidates.
Bestas decried the “unfair competition” with her rivals, saying she and her co-candidate cannot match Kurum and Imamoglu’s campaigning prowess due to the difference in the budgets available.
“For one, the government uses all the resources of power, state resources, from planes to transportation, from transportation to budget. The other is ultimately the mayor of the metropolitan municipality. Their budget cannot be compared to ours,” she said.
The DEM Party co-candidate noted that they ran their campaign with the party budget allocated by the country’s finance and treasury ministry, and labeled the vote as an “unfair race”.
During her speech at the education syndicate, Bestas said this unfairness extends to the country’s Kurdish provinces, claiming that the government has mobilized soldiers to those provinces in order to change the voter demography.
“But despite all this, we are adamant [in our campaign], because we know that the people see this. We know that the people see this oppression, this injustice, this lawlessness, this regime of usurpation, and we are fighting against it,” she told those in attendance.
“Our most important slogan in Istanbul is ‘Let's support ourselves. Let's vote for ourselves, not for others,’” she added.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday reproached CHP for collaborating with the DEM Party and accused both parties of receiving orders from the headquarters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the Kurdistan Region’s Mount Qandil.
Erdogan’s accusations come at a time when there are speculations about the possibility of the restart of a new peace process within the country.
In an unprecedented and historic move, the Turkish government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) announced a peace process in 2013, paving the way for a new era in Turkey. However, the peace ended in 2015 due to renewed tensions between both sides.
In a letter to the public recently shared on X Jailed Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas encouraged the DEM Party to hold talks with Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Veteran Kurdish politician and DEM Party MP Ahmet Turk, who is running for the mayoralty of the city of Mardin, told Rudaw during an interview earlier this month that they have talked peace process “with some personalities” inside the Turkish parliament, without disclosing their names or the positions they hold.
Turk noted that the decision for a peace process ultimately lies in the hands of Erdogan.
“There is no such process, meeting, or path [that DEM Party is taking] at the moment. But our demand for peace is always valid. Our demand for a solution is always valid. Not just for after April 1,” Bestas said, as opposed to Turk’s comments.
While Erdogan is strongly opposed to a new peace with the PKK, his party has expressed an openness to reviving the process, albeit being harshly criticized for simply instrumentalizing the Kurdish issue to garner more votes in the upcoming elections.
During a televised interview on Saturday night, DEM Party Tulay Hatimogullari accused AKP of only remembering the Kurdish issue during the election cycle, “AKP also only remembers the Kurdish problem from election to election,” she said.
In the latest election survey conducted by Turkish pollster MetroPoll published on March 2, Imamoglu marginally leads the race against the AKP’s Kurum, while Bestas and Cepni come third.
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