Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday vowed to seize municipalities once again immediately after upcoming local elections take place, should mayoral candidates backed by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) come out of ballot box victorious.
“Elections are nearing. If those involved with terror come out of the ballot box, we shall appoint trustees with no delay,” Erdoğan told an audience of mostly his Justice and Development Party (AKP) and bureaucrats in the Turkish capital of Ankara, according to a report by Kurdistan 24.
Local elections in Turkey are set to be held on March 31, 2019. Currently, 94 of 102 municipalities in Kurdish-majority cities and towns are administered by Ankara-appointed trustees as the Erdoğan administration moved in late 2016 to depose, arrest, and jail mayors elected in the previous 2014 vote with charges of “terrorism” and collaboration with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“You cannot continue your rule with threats. You are already worried. Your worry will not change the result,” HDP deputy Meral Danış Beştaş wrote on Twitter in response to Erdoğan. “Your wrath stems from the fear in you,” she said in Kurdish.
Laws changed in the aftermath of a controversial coup attempt on July 15, 2016, allowed him to seize the municipalities including the metropolitan areas of Diyarbakır, Mardin, and Van, each province with a population of over one million people. Trustees have dismantled the legacy of their elected predecessors by taking down Kurdish language signboards, shutting down arts centers, theaters, and even kindergartens.
HDP, the main pro-Kurdish party, has a sister party, the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), at the local level. It is not clear yet which party will enter the elections to challenge the AKP candidate, wrote the Kurdistan 24.
Meanwhile, BDP’s co-chairs Sebahat Tuncel and Mehmet Aslan remain in Turkish jails along with over 60 mayors and eight former lawmakers, including HDP’s former leader and Erdoğan’s presidential rival in the June 2018 elections, Selahattin Demirtaş.
Another reaction to Erdoğan’s plans to appoint bureaucrats to run Kurdish population centers and depose elected mayors came from the opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP) deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu.
“It has been announced with this statement that in Turkey there is no such thing as the right to free elections. Criteria for becoming a candidate are clear in the law, and they are approved by the YSK [Supreme Electoral Council],” Tanrıkulu, himself a Kurd and long-time human rights lawyer, said.
“Erdoğan is already declaring that he will not recognize a people’s will even if it comes out of the ballot box,” he added.
The post Turkey’s Erdoğan vows re-seizure of municipalities should pro-Kurdish HDP win local elections appeared first on Stockholm Center for Freedom.
from Stockholm Center for Freedom https://stockholmcf.org/turkeys-erdogan-vows-re-seizure-of-municipalities-should-hdp-win-local-elections/
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