DEM Party strategic loser in Turkey’s local elections

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Against the backdrop of what preliminary results portray as a victory for the Turkish opposition, the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) posited itself as a strategic loser of Sunday’s provincial elections, losing a large number of votes to the main opposition party as a result not of supporters' defection but of strategy, said an analyst, attributing the loss to the party’s leftists. 

“What shocked everyone was the dramatic surge in the votes of the CHP [Republican People’s Party], especially in Istanbul and other cities in Western Turkey compared to the previous elections,” Abdullah Kiran, an international relations expert, told Rudaw’s Nwenar Fatih. 

“In Istanbul, the DEM Party voters all voted for the CHP. I believe it did not happen as a result of the defection of the DEM Party’s voters but the party’s own plan,” he added. 

The analyst attributed the strategy the DEM Party’s leftists for encouraging the party’s supporters to vote for CHP’s candidate for Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, noting that the whole point was to help Imamoglu remain in his position and make the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lose. 

“The DEM Party collected Kurdish votes for the CHP in order to make the AKP lose, doing its best to make this policy prevail,” he added. 

The pro-Kurdish party fielded Meral Danis Bestas in Istanbul but preliminary results published by state media show that she received less than two percent of the votes in Istanbul while Imamoglu is heading the race with a ten percent difference with AKP’s Murat Kurum. 

Ziryan Rojhalati, the head of Rudaw Research Centre, said that the DEM Party is the second loser of the elections after the AKP. 

“The first winner of these elections is the CHP,” he said.

The DEM Party has regained control of Diyarbakir (Amed), Mardin, Batman (Elih), Siirt, Hakkari (Colemerg), Van, and Igdir provinces which were won by its sister party, Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), in 2019 local elections but were later confiscated by state-appointed administrators due to alleged links with Kurdish rebels, according to data provided by Anadolu Agency.  

The pro-Kurdish party has won Tunceli (Dersim) municipality from the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) and Agri and Mus from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). 

Nevertheless, the party lost Kars to the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). 

Over 89 percent of the votes have been counted so far.