Hakkari (Colemêrg) Co-Mayor Viyan Tekçe has called for resistance against the recent appointment of a state trustee by the Turkish Interior Ministry, which removed her colleague, elected Co-Mayor Mehmet Sıddık Akış and replaced him with Governor Ali Çelik. “Today is the day to stand against trustees and show we do not recognise the plundering trustee mentality,” Tekçe declared.
Tekçe criticised the government’s decision as a blow to the will of Hakkari residents. She stated that the government often fabricates excuses to justify such appointments. “No one needs to commit a crime. The AKP appoints trustees with any pretext and excuses they create. The AKP was already looking for a way to appoint a trustee here because they were defeated. We absolutely reject this usurpation of our will,” she said.
Describing the devastation left by previous trustees, Tekçe mentioned issues such as the hiring of partisan staff, misappropriation of funds to sports clubs, and substantial debts to provincial banks. Funds for the AKP’s election campaign propaganda partially substantiated the debts, she noted.
“We documented all these debts and planned to disclose them to the public before the trustee was appointed. Realising that we would expose their theft and plundering, they appointed a trustee,” Tekçe explained.
She also revealed that a 24 million TL loan with 100% interest was taken out from a bank to bribe voters during the election process. Additionally, the municipal budget was used to distribute natural gas and aid packages as part of the AKP’s campaign. Tekçe noted that the AKP candidate allocated 50,000 TL to his own mining company’s football team and 700,000 TL to the police football club.
Tekçe urged everyone to participate in democratic actions against the trustee appointment. “The trustee was appointed not only against the will of DEM Party members but also against AKP supporters. The will of all Hakkari residents has been usurped. Today is the day to defend our will, to stand against trustees, and to show we do not recognise the plundering trustee mentality. The people made their stance clear in the 31 March elections by rejecting trustees,” she concluded.
The practice of co-leadership, a fundamental principle in Kurdish political movement, is designed to promote gender equality in every level of organisation and governance. This model underscores democratic values, which are currently being challenged by government actions in Hakkari. Despite the Turkish legal system not officially recognising this model, Kurdish opposition groups often nominate one candidate as the official candidate while publicly declaring the other as a co-chair, co-mayor, or other co-leadership role to inform the public.
In the case of Hakkari, Viyan Tekçe serves as the co-mayor, embodying the spirit of co-leadership, while her colleague, Mehmet Sıddık Akış, was the official candidate before his removal by the state.
