ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Jailed Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas welcomed a call of unity from the opposition candidate for the mayor of Istanbul on Tuesday, amid a tense electoral race.
Istanbul’s mayoral candidates Ekrem Imamoglu, running with the Republican Peoples' Party (CHP), and Binali Yildirim, running with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), held a rare debate ahead of the June 23 repeat elections for the city.
During the televised debate, Imamoglu said that he is against partisanship in Istanbul and would rather see unity between all political parties--including the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Demirtas, the former co-leader of HDP who was jailed in November 2016, said that he endorses the call.
“I believe that today we have to endorse Mr. Imamoglu’s appeal because we are beautiful when we are together,” said Demirtas, former co-chair of the HDP, in a tweet on Tuesday, echoing Imamoglu’s “We are beautiful when we are together” election slogan.
Turkey held local elections on March 31, with a tight race playing out between the AKP and the CHP.
While the AKP won the majority of municipalities throughout Turkey, the CHP took Istanbul and Ankara and retained Izmir—the three most populous cities in the country.
Turkey’s electoral body later decided to dissolve the Istanbul results based on AKP claims of voter record irregularities, declaring a June 23 re-run of the election.
Demirtas’ tweet coincides with his trial over terror-related charges. He is facing a sentence of up to 142 years if convicted on all charges.
Most of the charges stem from allegations of ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – a banned political party in Turkey. Demirtas led negotiations during peace talks between the PKK and the Turkish government several years ago.
Will the HDP support Imamoglu?
The HDP has called on Istanbul’s Kurds to support Imamoglu, even launching a campaign to defeat the ruling party’s Yildirim.
Azad Baris, deputy leader of HDP said on Sunday that HDP has gone through what CHP is currently experiencing, referring to when the Turkish government replaced elected officials with appointed trustees.
In 2016 HDP mayors were stripped of their positions and replaced by pro-government administrators, called “trustees”, after Turkey’s failed coup.
The government blamed the attempted coup on its former ally Fethullah Gulen and led a crackdown to silence criticism, with over 120,000 police, military, academia, media and civil servants detained or dismissed from their jobs.
“A trustee was appointed to Istanbul following the March 31 elections,” Baris told Mezopotamya Agency (MA) on Sunday.
“We [HDP] have been through this a lot. The latest being the appointment of trustees to six municipalities we won,” he said.
“Therefore, we say that we will win, as democracy has a candidate. We will vote for Mr. Ekrem [Imamoglu] who is on the democracy front,” said Baris.
The HDP did not field candidates in western provinces such as Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir for the March 31 elections, in a strategic bid for the opposition to gain more votes against the AKP.
Demirtas called on supporters on March 29 to follow the HDP's strategy in the west.
“Let’s not forget the past, what we saw and what we have experienced. But the future is more important. For a better future, I urge all our voters to support the electoral strategy of our party,” he said.
Sezai Temelli, co-chair of the HDP, has been campaigning against Yildirim in Istanbul for the past week.
At a rally of HDP supporters on Tuesday, he said that Yildirim will lose.
During his speech to the audience, Temelli said that when people ask who he thinks will win the repeat election, he responds: “I say, Binali will lose and democracy will win”.
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