Dilara Lorin
The local elections in Turkey on 31 March ended with a victory for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) the party originally founded by Kemal Atatürk, while President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered a significant defeat.
Out of a total of 81 mayoralties, the CHP won 31 and the AKP 24. The CHP also won in the country’s five largest cities, including Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. After he originally won elections in these cities, Erdoğan said: “Whoever wins Istanbul and Ankara has the country in their hands.” Today the situation has changed and the “strong man on the Bosporus” has lost these power bases. The CHP’s success came as a surprise to many people.
Less than a year after Erdoğan was re-elected president, his popularity appears to be waning, with voters rejecting him and his current policies. In particular, the re-election of the CHP’s Ekrem İmamoğlu in Istanbul, by an even larger margin than before, has shaken the AKP’s s reputation of invincibility.
Growing popular resentment
The country’s economic situation has barely recovered from the effects of the global economic crisis, the coronavirus pandemic, last year’s disastrous earthquake, on February 6 and the collapse of the construction industry. This has been exacerbated by Erdoğan’s economic policy and the instability it has caused. In February, the inflation rate was 67%, with basic foodstuffs barely affordable for the majority of working class families.
The persistently poor economic situation is affecting the middle class, too, and is leading to increased insecurity of employment, and outright unemployment. During the election campaign, Erdoğan promised a strong economy and a positive outlook for the future in his speeches. However, a closer look at the figures reveals poverty is increasing with each passing month. The current minimum wage of TL 17,000 (487 euros) is already below the poverty line of TL 20,098 for a family of four. This means that a single earner is no longer able to feed a family due to the rising cost of food over the past five years.
In March, the month of the local elections, the proportion of people living below the hunger and poverty thresholds rose by 5.9% and 11% respectively. The hunger threshold represents the minimum expenditure on food for a family of four to have a balanced diet; the poverty threshold is a figure that describes the minimum expenditure of a family of four.
This alarming news was published in March by the Confederation of Public Service Unions (Birlesik Kamu-is Konfederasyonu). Pensioners have been an important part of Erdoğan and the AKP’s voter base and their situation has also deteriorated. According to the DISK trade union, the average pension is one-sixth that of pensions in Central European countries. Compared to the minimum wage, the pension in Turkey was still 22% higher in 2002. In 2023, however, it was around 26% lower.
However, the AKP’s defeat was also due to competition from the right-wing conservatives of the New Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah Partisi, YRP) which in the past has attracted support on religious grounds. Its voters have been turning away from the AKP because of the economic misery and, while it was part of Erdoğan’s “People’s Alliance” in the presidential elections, in these elections it fielded its own candidates. It gained 6% of the vote and won the elections in the cities of Yozgat and Sanliurfa.
Candidates who left the AKP, or did not get a place on its lists, were adopted by the YRP. It is therefore no surprise that disillusioned AKP voters are switching to the YRP if they do not vote for the CHP. The YRP also denounced the AKP and its economic relations with Israel and thus also won many votes as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinian people from an Islamic perspective.
DEM – a cry of joy from the Kurds
The DEM Party (People’s Party for Equality and Democracy), which was still called HEDEP (People’s Emancipation and Democracy Party) before December 2023 and HDP (People’s Democratic Party) before that, won mainly in the Kurdish provinces. It won mayoral office in 10 districts, making it the fourth strongest party in the country. DEM was able to establish itself as the strongest force in over 65 counties, districts and municipalities. There was great joy, especially in the Kurdish regions, about this victory, which led to a strengthening and expansion of votes in favour of the party despite forced renaming of the party, outright bans, intimidation, prison sentences for its activists, and other forms of severe repression
In Manisa, Mersin and Izmir, as well as in many districts of Istanbul and other places, the DEM party did not nominate candidates after negotiations with the CHP where the latter was more strongly placed. This “little helper” policy could prove fatal for the DEM party, as it hands its electorate to the CHP in these areas. After all, the CHP supported the AKP in lifting the immunity of HDP deputies in order to put many of them in prison, including their co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas.
The CHP – a wolf in sheep’s clothing
The CHP’s record of supporting the oppression of the Kurdish people is long and goes far back into Turkey’s history. Due to its nationalist and bourgeois orientation, this party can in no way be regarded as progressive.
Although it is understandable that many people, including workers, were on the streets on the night of 31 March to 1 April 2024 celebrating the defeat of the AKP, the CHP’s victory should not be a cause for celebration for left-wing and revolutionary forces. The CHP already attracted attention in the presidential elections in May 2023 due to its racist and inflammatory comments and demands against refugees and asylum seekers, even trying to overtake Erdoğan on the right by calling for the immediate deportation of three million people.
Its election programme for the 2024 local elections stated, among other things, that measures to promote the return of refugees and asylum seekers should be promoted in close cooperation with “reliable” NGOs. This propaganda has consequences: refugees are attacked on the street every day and, tragically, these acts often end in murder. The indirect electoral support which the DEM party as a left-wing opposition has provided o the CHP, by not putting up its own candidates, must be criticised and itself reveals the petty-bourgeois character of its politics.
Current surveys in Van and other cities – a first success
Compared to the 2019 local elections, in which the HDP won 65 municipalities, the DEM was able to hold its own. However, after the successes 5 years ago, the mayors in 48 municipalities were removed by the government and replaced by AKP-affiliated administrators and thus forcibly administered by the state.
This year, too, the success of DEM in the Kurdish provinces was challenged by the government as early as 2 April. In fact, electoral fraud and vote rigging were already being used by the government during the election. On the same day, the DEM reported that up to 46,000 state employees – including mainly police officers and soldiers – had cast their votes in the Kurdish regions, although they did not come from these places but were transferred there to influence the vote in favour of the government.
On the morning of 2 April, the government struck its first blow against the DEM. In Van, it was not the elected DEM politician Abdullah Zeydan (55%) but the AKP candidate Abdulahat Arvas, who only won 25% of the vote, who was presented with the certificate of appointment. The Turkish government stripped Zeydan of his civil rights, which he had only regained last year after being arrested as an HDP deputy in 2016 and spending five years in prison. Van is the province where the DEM won the majority in all districts, which makes even clearer the bureaucratic and undemocratic character of the AKP. People have taken to the streets to protest against it.
The DEM party rightly called for protests without further ado and stated in its press release that respect for the voters should be demanded. The co-chair of the DEM Party stated in a speech in Van:
“Van is the heart of Kurdistan and the people of Van have made it clear on Newroz (Kurdish New Year), during the elections and today here on this square that the Kurds’ demand for freedom and democracy cannot be suppressed with violence and forced administration. For two election periods, our town halls have been forcibly administered by trustees and now the will of the people is to be eliminated once again with a political and legal conspiracy. We will not allow this to happen. This coup will not succeed if we continue to stand together despite repression, truncheons and tear gas. We will defend the 14 town halls we have won in the province of Van.”
On the same day, a special meeting of the party’s executive was held, which was also attended by CHP deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu. Street barricades were erected, and thousands of people responded to the call. Most of the shops in Van remained closed. The state responded with massive violence and repression and stormed the DEM party offices. However, the protests quickly spread: Other cities, including Colemêrg (Turkish: Hakkari), Gever (Yüksekova) and Amed (Diyarbakir) joined the walkout.
The spreading of the protests and the pressure they exerted on the government were successful: on Wednesday, 3 April, the High Election Committee, which had previously approved the AKP candidate, ruled on the DEM party’s objection and decided to recognise Zeydan as the election winner.
A spark has been ignited
The protests show that the Kurdish people are aware of their strength in this country. However, they also show the weakness of the AKP and its lack of support among the population. After all, when the government dismissed the mayors in the majority Kurdish municipalities after the local elections in 2016 and had them forcibly replaced by its own candidates, strong protests also broke out, but these were bloodily put down. Curfews were imposed on the cities with the strongest resistance, journalists were denied access and more than 200 people were murdered.
The attempt to remove the elected mayor of the DEM in Van was yet another attempt to demonstrate the power of the machinery of repression. However, the fact that this was withdrawn within a day also shows the fear that the protests could spread and that the spark of the uprising could spread to other areas and the whole of Kurdistan.
The protests should not stop there, as the next elections are not for another 4 years. In the meantime, the state can still carry out its repressive and oppressive actions. One thing must be clear: no trust in the institutions of the Turkish state !
As a mass party, the DEM party could play a leading role in this struggle by expanding the current protests. Even reformist, or radical petty-bourgeois parties, can do more than merely win seats in parliaments and other bodies. They should use the electoral space to publicise mass movements and their demands, encouraging the current protests and extending them further across the country.
Against the crises, poverty and oppression, trade unions must be put under pressure to fight nationwide for an immediate programme against price increases, for a minimum wage and minimum pensions that cover the cost of living, and fare automatically adjusted for inflation. This must be controlled by committees of trade unions and wage earners.
To achieve this goal, mass political strikes are necessary; including general strikes and massive demonstrations organised and controlled by local action committees. Self-defence bodies must be formed against repression and provocations by the state and the far right.
Ultimately, only a strong movement of the oppressed and workers can act effectively against the future plots of the government, against the economic crisis, oppression and poverty. In order to build such a movement, which will also win over the workers and oppressed in the economically stronger cities in the west of the country, a united front of the trade unions, social movements and left-wing parties like the DEM must be built.
The grass roots membership of the CHP must also be addressed in order to expose the party’s policies, which use racism to divide the population and whose nationalist orientation cannot offer any solutions. Above all, however, the trade unions must be drawn into the struggle – they have a key role to play in a real confrontation with the government.
There is also a need for self-defence units of the oppressed and workers to defend the party buildings, town halls won by the DEM against repression. Turkey has long been on a downward spiral and it is only a matter of time before the population can no longer endure the pressure of poverty, hunger and racism. Outbreaks of rage against the government must have no illusions the CHP and must unite the oppressed of the country with the workers. This can ultimately only be advanced by a revolutionary workers’ party based on a revolutionary programme.