Turkey: Kurdish politicians strive to seize historic opportunity in upcoming election

Yigal Schleifer 7/10/07

One recent day under a blazing morning sun, Selahattin Demirtas, a member of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) and a candidate for parliament in Turkey's southeast region, was out and about pressing the flesh.

As he works his way down the main street of Ergani, a dusty agricultural town of some 60,000, Demirtas, dressed in a light gray suit despite the heat, stopped to greet storeowners. "Chawani bashi?" said Demirtas, a human rights lawyer from the nearby city of Diyarbakir, asking the shopkeepers how they are in Kurdish

While he waited for the candidate to pass, one man, an owner of a small market dressed in a brown vest and traditional Kurdish baggy pants, waved his arms excitedly and said loudly to no one in particular, "He's going to win! He's going to win!"

In previous elections this might have seemed like wishful thinking. No pro-Kurdish party has gained representation in Turkey's parliament in almost two decades, shut out by Turkey's high election threshold – the highest in Europe – that requires a party to gain at least 10 percent of the national vote to receive legislative seats. In Turkey's last election, in 2002, the DTP (then known as the Democratic Peoples' Party, or DEHAP) received 6 percent of the vote, although it swept most of the voting districts in the predominantly-Kurdish southeast

The election threshold does not apply to independent candidates, though, and for the upcoming polls – set for July 22 – the DTP has decided to make an end run and field its candidates as unaffiliated. This innovative tactic has created an unprecedented opportunity for the Kurdish community's voice to be heard on the national political level

If more than 20 of the "independents" make it into parliament, then by law they will be able to regroup under their party's banner. Some polls predict that as many as 35 of the DTP's stealth candidates could make it into parliament.

The prospect of a strong Kurdish representation in Ankara is creating a sense of excitement in many parts of the southeast and, observers say, presents both an opportunity and a challenge for Turks and Kurds at a time when attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Turkish forces are on the rise. Those attacks have prompted Turkey's political and military establishment to contemplate invading northern Iraq with the aim of destroying PKK training and logistics bases. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

"There's a sense of excitement because our candidates have a chance of getting into parliament. It's almost guaranteed that we will be in the next parliament," says Husseyin Baydur, a 27-year-old librarian sitting at an outdoor café in Diyarbakir, where the pro-Kurdish DEHAP won nearly 60 percent of the vote in the previous elections

The last time a pro-Kurdish party made it into parliament, 16 years ago, ended in disaster when the new parliamentarians insisted on taking their oath in Kurdish and were kicked out of the body and ultimately jailed. The question now, many say, is whether Turkey is ready to accept a pro-Kurdish party in parliament and whether the Kurdish politicians have matured enough to moderate their positions?

"We all have changed. I think both sides now see more clearly that they cannot win the war," says Cuneyt Ulsever, a columnist with Hurriyet, Turkey's largest daily newspaper. "Before you could have not even written about the Kurdish issue, now even the people in the street are talking about this issue."

"If the DTP can act like a general Turkish party rather than talk about the Kurdish problem right from the beginning, that would be more easily digested by the public," Ulsever continued. "But if they came out right from the beginning and called for freedom for [Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK's jailed leader], then there would be hell."

Hilmi Aydogdu, the DTP's Diyarbakir chairman, says the party's candidates are not going to parliament "to fight" but to try and foster dialogue with the other parties there. "This way we hope to break the way people have been looking at us and to show that our aim is to be integrated with Turkey," says Aydogdu, who recently served a two-month prison sentence in connection with a roundup of several of the DTP's top leaders around Turkey

Taking a lunch break after campaigning in Ergani, Selahattin Demirtas says he and his fellow independents' first order of business once in parliament would be to push for the adoption of a new civil constitution to replace the current one, written under the auspices of the military following a 1980 coup. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which is expected to retain its parliamentary majority, has also called for a new constitution, although DTP candidates say they will push for one that guarantees cultural and linguistic rights for the Kurdish community

Demirtas, who runs the Diyarbakir office of the Human Rights Association, a watchdog group, says he and his fellow independent DTP candidates are aware of the opportunity the upcoming elections present. "We will be able to participate in the discussions and commissions in parliament," Demirtas, serious but soft spoken, says. "Even if we can't change the commissions' decisions, we will have a platform to air out our complaints."

Those complaints are not hard to hear in the southeast. While the unemployment rate in Turkey stands at close 10 percent, the figure is closer to 60 percent in the region. And while some cities in western Turkey, where much of the country's industry is located, have per capita incomes that are on par with some parts of Europe, many cities in the mostly agrarian southeast have per capita incomes that are more in-line with developing nations

In addition, Kurds complain about discrimination. To promote Turkey's European Union bid, the AKP government has instituted a number of reforms to ease restrictions on Kurdish language and culture. But many Kurds complain that the new measures are limited, or are not being implemented properly. For example, when Abdullah Demirbas, the DTP mayor of Diyarbakir's multicultural old city district, tried last year to offer municipal services in Kurdish, Arabic and Armenian, along with Turkish, he soon found himself in legal trouble – accused of violating Turkey's constitution – and out of a job. "If there were any improvements, I would not have been sacked from my position," the former mayor says. "There have been some positive steps ... but they were just for show, to show the EU and the world that Turkey is making reforms."

Isa Akengin, a retired tax collector chatting with friends in front of his Diyarbakir apartment building, says that the strong local support for the "independent" DTP candidates is rooted in the feeling that the Turkish government is not committed to the expansion of cultural rights. "We're not expecting jobs or factories from them," Akengin, 75, says. "We know whoever goes to parliament might not be able to do anything for us and we don't expect them to. We just want them to represent our identity in parliament. Kurdish politicians with other parties have promised to do this, but once they got to Ankara they forgot about us, as if they had never said those words."

"They will take our voice to Turkey, to Europe," he adds. "This will already improve our life."

Editor's Note: Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.

Posted July 10, 2007 © Eurasianet