elected Kurdish mayor has already been put aside

• Mitra Nazar

  correspondent Turkey

Things are restless in the Turkish city of Van: protests broke out last night and security forces are present in large numbers. Supporters of the pro-Kurdish party DEM protest against a controversial decision by the provincial electoral council. It awarded the mayoralty to the candidate of the AK Party (AKP), while the Kurdish candidate won with a large majority of the votes.

Abdullah Zeydan, former parliamentarian of the Kurdish party, won 55 percent of the votes in Van on Sunday. But two days after the polls, the electoral council decided to cancel his election. According to authorities, Zeydan should not have participated in the elections because of a criminal case from 2016.

Together with other Kurdish politicians, he was arrested on suspicion of ‘terror propaganda’. Instead, Abdulahat Avraz is now being put forward, who is a candidate on behalf of Turkish President Erdogan’s AKP. Ayraz received only 27 percent of the votes.

After that decision, hundreds of residents in Van took to the streets. Security forces intervened harshly with water cannon and tear gas, dozens of demonstrators were arrested. It is also restless today. The governor (AKP) has banned all demonstrations for the next fifteen days through an emergency decree.

Unrest in Turkey after Kurdish mayor is deposed:

Riots in Turkey after ousting of Kurdish mayor

Kurdish politicians say a local ‘coup’ is underway. “This is a new low in the undemocratic state of affairs that we have been dealing with for a long time,” a party spokesperson said. They point out that Zeydan’s candidacy had indeed been approved. According to them, reversing that decision at the last minute can therefore only be politically motivated.

Selahattin Demirtas, the former leader of the pro-Kurdish party who has been in custody for eight years, sent a statement from prison. “This is not the way to respect the will of the people,” he wrote, referring to Erdogan’s own words when he conceded the AKP’s loss on Sunday evening. “I ask everyone who is for democracy to speak out against this injustice, including other opposition parties.”

This was done, among others, by Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who won a major victory on Sunday and ensured that the country’s largest city remains in the hands of the opposition. In a statement, Imamoglu called what is happening in Van unacceptable and called on the government and electoral council to “respect the will of the people.” His party CHP, which became the largest party in the country on Sunday, said it would send a delegation to Van to show solidarity.

The pro-Kurdish DEM party is the fourth largest party in Turkey, after the conservative AKP and secular CHP. DEM originated from the HDP, which was threatened with closure and managed to avoid this by continuing under a different name.

Kurdish parties in Turkey are plagued by lawsuits and accusations. Politicians are regularly associated with the Kurdish terrorist group PKK and convicted on the basis of making ‘propaganda for a terrorist group’.

In the years after the previous local elections in 2019, more than a hundred Kurdish mayors were removed from office and replaced by AKP members loyal to Erdogan. It is now also taken into account that many elected Kurdish mayors will suffer the same fate as Zeydan in Van in the near future.

Since the elections, unrest has also arisen in other Kurdish cities and municipalities and results are being disputed. Protests broke out in the city of Bitlis after the AKP candidate narrowly defeated the Kurdish candidate. Kurdish voters questioned the result. In Diyarbakir, the AKP contested the win of pro-Kurdish co-mayors with 64 percent of the votes.

Fraud has been reported in various places. In Kars and Sirnak, among others, the situation was suspicious when hundreds of soldiers and police officers in uniform were seen queuing at polling stations. According to the Kurdish party, this is a sign that the government has deployed loyal soldiers and agents to increase the number of AKP votes in Kurdish areas.

The pro-Kurdish party is appealing against the election commission’s decision to cancel the mayoralty of the elected Abdullah Zeydan.