Fréderike Geerdink
Just in case you thought the protests against the replacement of the elected co-mayor of Hakkari by a government appointed ‘trustee’ and the jailing of the co-mayor were over: they are not. A huge protest was held this week in the city. I was critical about CHP not sending high profile MPs or leaders to Hakkari in solidarity, but I possibly made that call too soon: it seems leader Özel is taking up the subject in his widely reported talks with Erdoğan. DEM Party and CHP are still not on the same page when it comes to Kurds and democracy, but let’s say something wild: maybe that’s of later concern.
The co-mayor of Hakkari (Colemêrg in Kurdish), Mehmet Sıddık Akış, was removed from the mayoral seat on 3 June, after having been elected with a solid majority in the local elections of 31 March. He was instantly replaced by an AKP stooge. A couple of days later, Akış was sentenced to 19.5 years in prison on absurd terrorism charges.
Dynamic
The people of Hakkari and Kurds in many cities and towns across the Kurdish provinces immediately took to the streets to protest, even though unsurprisingly several local governors had issued demonstration bans. In the news cycle, the story has fallen off the radar again. That’s a pity, because there are interesting developments that could cause a good dynamic.
Firstly, it is the people of Kurdistan who have kept demonstrating. This week, thousands of people from inside and outside Hakkari gathered in the city to demand their mayor back. Of course, the protest is also meant to stop further damage to the election outcomes. After the previous local elections, in 2019, almost all Kurdish mayors were replaced by ‘trustees’, and DEM Party’s election strategy to win all these municipalities back on 31 March, was hugely successful. With the demonstrations, the people tell the government: look, we are electing our mayors again and again every single day, so our democratic will is strong.
Success
Meanwhile DEM Party is rolling out a national campaign to protest the trustee practices. The first rally of that campaign, of course in Hakkari, was a huge success (although sorry, it’s more likely there were thousands https://www.duvarenglish.com/thousands-in-diyarbakir-protest-appointment-of-trustee-to-replace-kurdish-mayor-despite-police-barricade-news-64479 of people, not tens of thousands – the crowd estimates in Kurdistan are the one thing in Kurdish movement media I am sceptical of ;-)).
Where is CHP? Well, the party sent a delegation to Hakkari right away, with MPs from Antalya and Bursa (in south and west Turkey) and with a deputy chair. I was disappointed: shouldn’t CHP leader Özgür Özel have been there? Shouldn’t CHP act in total solidarity with DEM Party’s elected representatives, as the winner of the local elections that gives people some hope that maybe during the presidential elections in 2028, Erdoğan (or another AKP candidate) can be voted out?
Özel was meeting with Erdoğan though. Not exactly that day, but there have been two meetings now, the second this week at the CHP headquarters, a first in almost three decades. One of the things on the agenda is a new constitution, but it has become clear that Özel brought up pressing issues that are highly important for Kurds.
Sit-in
One is the absurd convictions in the so-called Kobani trials, in which many Kurdish (and a few Turkish) politicians, among whom former HDP (DEM Party’s predecessor) co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş, were jailed on fabricated charges related to ‘terrorism’. Also, the ‘trustee’ issue was brought up, and even the case of Emine Şenyaşar. She is a Kurdish woman whose husband and two sons were shot by the team of an AKP MP who came campaigning in their town in Urfa province back in 2018. She has been demanding justice ever since, before in front of a courthouse but currently holding a sit-in in front of the Justice Ministry in Ankara.
Maybe Özel is not absent, maybe Özel is seriously doing some political balancing. If he comes rallying in Hakkari, he may hamper the talks with Erdoğan, which could lead somewhere because he actually has some leverage since he was so successful in the elections, dealing a nice blow to AKP. CHP has become a force to reckon with for the tall man – that’s a way to refer to Erdoğan if you don’t want to mention his name all the time, but explaining it renders it ineffective, I see that.
So what if this combined pressure by the people of Kurdistan and especially Hakkari, and by CHP in Ankara, would have the effect that no more ‘trustees’ are going to be appointed in Kurdish municipalities? That would be amazing. It’s something Erdoğan could also relatively easily do, in the sense that it’s rather invisible to not do something, so not bothering your core voter base too much.
‘Terrorism’
It would be a great cooperation between DEM Party and CHP, whether they have planned it like this or not. But this would not mean that both parties are exactly on the same page when it comes to ‘trustees’. The CHP has stated that if a democratically elected mayor is convicted, it must be possible to replace him, but the appointment should be left to the municipality council. That’s not the right approach. Mehmet Sıddık Akış and all the mayors before him, were replaced because they were accused of ‘terrorism’, which is in every single case a nonsense accusation.
So what the CHP should eventually see, is that advocating for Kurdish rights is not ‘terrorism’. Now that would bring the solution of the Kurdish issue closer. Then after that, they could progress to also stating that armed resistance against suppression isn’t terrorism, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s for now acknowledge that a light is twinkling in the CHP tunnel.
Fréderike Geerdink is an independent journalist. Follow her on Twitter or subscribe to her acclaimed weekly newsletter Expert Kurdistan.
