Due to the alliance of the Kurds and the Turkish opposition forces
The (2019) elections demonstrated the vulnerability of the current Turkish president
The moment Recep Tayyip Erdogan tasted defeat in the local elections; He committed the first sin of democracy, which is the denial of the results. Istanbul, the mesmerizing city fell in Erdogan’s hand and his party, which he ruled for two decades, but the Kurdish vote seems to have settled the battle in favor of his rivals. The Justice and Development Party, led by Erdogan, announced its rejection to the results by re-election in the city.
Erdogan himself described the defeat in the Istanbul municipal elections as an “organized crime”, following the victory of the opposition Republican People’s Party candidate in the elections. The President of the Turkish Republic descended from his throne to the smallest constituency in Istanbul to announce his support for the victory of his party’s candidate and to try to disrupt the victory of the opposition.
Erdogan's policy against the Kurds made them to repeal his magic formula that he used to win, before he assumed the presidency.
Just after the end of the election battle with the opposition’s victory in more than one Turkish city, especially Istanbul, Erdogan blew out his cool, as the indications reveal that the Kurds were the voice that ruined the plan of taking over the power that Erdogan and his party hijacked in Turkey, and in its quest to avenge the electoral defeat in (2019) to hit the opposition alignment; During the weeks following the elections, the government of the current Turkish president carried out arbitrary arrests, intended by Ankara to increase the pressure on the Kurds and their political representatives.
The German website Deutsche Welle accurately described what happened in these Turkish elections, when it said: “The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) made the difference in the last major elections in Turkey in 2019, especially the local elections, which contributed to confirming its reputation as a ‘king-maker’.
In a smart move that contributed to the first electoral defeat of the Turkish President Erdogan and his ruling party, the leadership of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party) HDP( withdrew its candidates in some cities and demanded that its voters vote for the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) candidates instead. Without the Kurdish support, the victory of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in elections in some Turkish cities would have been out of the question.
The German website said, regarding this move that benefited the Republican People’s Party, which opposes Erdogan’s policies, that the Kurds will pay the price for it, and that is what really happened in the few months following the elections. Within weeks, dozens of Kurdish politicians and activists were arrested.
The Kurdish position has never been separated from Turkish barbarism in dealing with the Kurdish areas inside Syria or even within Turkey. The Kurds found that ISIS, an extremist military tool run by Turkish intelligence, kills them on one side and the Turkish army kills them and displaces them on the other side, so they found nothing but to ruin Erdogan’s political life by allying with all his opponents and enemies inside Turkey in order to defeat him, which is what happened in the (2019) elections.
The Turkish opposition, among which Erdogan and his party worked to ignite the flame of strife and keep it divided in rallying its forces against Erdogan’s government. This is how the political editor of the German website Deutsche Welle describes the situation, and this was especially evident in the local elections, when the opposition parties – Islamists, nationalists, social democrats and left-liberals – despite all the political differences joined forces for the first time against their “common enemy” Erdogan. Thus, the unity of the opposition, along with the economic crisis, has become one of the most significant challenges facing Erdogan to retain power.
The election results were followed by a political blunder with a campaign of arrests against the opposition and the Kurds.
The most important characteristic of Turkish political life, which Erdogan and his party have shaped with their personality, is the repressive form and the systematic eradication of anyone who dares to stand up in the way of the current tyrant leader. Where the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) – full of Kurds, leftists and nationalists – estimates the number of its detainees at about 20 thousand, even the former co-chairs of the party, Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yuksekdag. The big question is how can the opposition carry out evaluation, and the President of the Turkish Republic imprisons his opponents, including opposition leaders? While observers of Kurdish and Turkish affairs describe what Ankara is doing as an organized political campaign of genocide against the party, which, albeit with a Kurdish majority, it represents many of the non-Kurdish Turkish democratic and leftist leanings and forces.
- Karam Saeed, Securing Hegemony: Why the Turkish ruling party seeks to amend the party law in Turkey, the website of Future for advanced research and studies.
- DW German news website.
- Sky News website.
- CNN Arabic website