In the end, the leaders of the People’s Democratic Party, the HDP, chose to defend themselves by remaining silent. On Tuesday April 11, the future of their political party will be decided by the Constitutional Court and they have decided not to speak at the hearing. Accused of complicity with a terrorist group, the only pro-Kurdish party could be wiped off the map of Erdogan’s Turkey, just one month before the legislative and presidential elections.
“All the parties similar to the HDP have been closed by the government and, in any case, we have not been able to work normally since 2015, says Erdal Avci, co-leader of the party in Istanbul. We have 6,000 employees in prison, the police are filtering the enter our premises and we can no longer organize militant activities… Our ban has already been in effect for a long time, the court decision will be just one more sign of the fascism that is rampant in this country.”
Tacit support for the anti-Erdogan candidate
Although they have renounced their structure, the leaders of the HDP have not given up their political weight. They anticipated these elections and their likely ban. At the end of March, the party announced that it would not present a presidential candidate, with the stated objective of bringing down Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the process, the deputies of the HDP massively registered under the banner of the Yesil Sol Party, a small environmentalist party, in order to be able to participate in the legislative elections and influence the next government.
In fact, the Kurds tacitly line up behind the united opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. “Clearly, Kilicdaroglu is trying to rally the Kurds when he says he wants to be the representative of 85 million Turks, raises Henri Barkey, researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations. The six million Kurdish voters are not an electorate to be neglected and the HDP is the third largest political party in Turkey. If the judiciary bans the HDP, it is possible that the Kurds will be so furious that they will vote massively and ensure the victory of Kilicdaroglu.” This candidate was also chosen by the opposition for his moderation and his ability to reassure minorities, despite his flagrant lack of charisma.
The anti-Erdogan alliance, which brings together six political parties, does not yet reassure the Kurds. A prominent member of the coalition comes from the nationalist right, hostile to ethnic minorities, and has threatened to leave the alliance if it is backed by the HDP. Kilicdaroglu appears however as a lesser evil, after twenty years of Erdogan. “This president is the worst, his ideology is the worst and he holds all the power in his own hands, underlines Besriye Terkgur, an HDP executive in Izmir. If Erdogan remains in power, Turkey will sink into darkness. But in reality, the oppression against Kurds, women and workers already existed before him and it is the whole political system that should change… We will bring this boat to port.”
Sign of hope for the Kurdish minority, which makes up 20% of the population in Turkey, Kilicdaroglu promised that he would lift the restrictions on the Kurdish language in the event of victory. A possible first step towards national reconciliation and negotiations with the PKK, a group considered terrorist in eastern Turkey.
In the meantime, the Kurds remain cautious in a tense electoral campaign. Erdogan and his ultranationalist allies are several points behind in the polls, and minorities are easy targets in political discourse. “It’s normal to be afraid in this period, but we have to ignore it, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to leave our homes, says Erdal Avci, from HDP Istanbul. This is what the authorities are looking for. But we have been resisting for 100 years, and we will resist another 100 years if necessary.”