Turkey’s opposition parties denounced the dissemination of fake leaflets in the Mediterranean city of Antalya in the name of pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), that displayed a separatist map of Kurdistan, days before the local elections.
Titled “This is a popular uprising,” the leaflet was designed in the same style as HDP advertisements and contained the logos of the four opposition parties – the HDP, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), the Good Party (IYI), and the Felicity Party (SP) – according to a report by Evrensel daily on Monday.
HDP deputy, Nihat Akkaya, said that his party will file a lawsuit for this conduct, denying any involvement with the leaflet that bears the HDP logo.
The deputy chair of SP supported the ruling of the local electoral board to remove the leaflets that were an attempt to smear the SP.
“They are trying to confuse people’s minds using dirty tricks,” said CHP’s deputy chair, Onursal Adiguzel. CHP spokesman, Faik Oztrak, asserted that his party had nothing to do with the leaflets handed out in Antalya.
Mimicking HDP’s political discourse, the leaflet criticizes the ruling AK Party and its ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), calling on HDP’s base to vote for the mayoral candidates of the Nation Alliance formed by the CHP and IYI Party in the metropolitan municipalities, instead of the People’s Alliance formed by the AKP and MHP.
“The People’s Alliance understands that they will lose most of Turkey in the upcoming local elections,” said HDP deputy Akkaya. “Amidst this political climate, some people take it upon themselves to hand out these leaflets and alike throughout the country.”
The leaflet also contains a map of Kurdistan, an idealized country that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) sought to establish in the earlier years of its armed insurgency.
The PKK replaced the goal for an independent state in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey with a demand of semi-autonomy later, thus pushing the independent state agenda to the fringes of the pro-Kurdish political spectrum.
AKP officials, spearheaded by President Tayyip Erdogan, equate the HDP with the outlawed PKK, alleging that the pro-Kurdish political party is no different than an armed terrorist group.
Based on this political discourse, Erdogan accused the opposition of allying with PKK for forging a secret alliance with HDP, also an allegation made by his party and pro-government media outlets, which is essentially the same thing according to him.
On these grounds, AKP and MHP deputies waged rhetoric, coining the upcoming local elections as a matter of “the survival of the state”.
CHP and IYI Party officials denied any association with HDP, and HDP also rejected the allegation that it is a shadow partner of the Nation Alliance.
The dissemination of such leaflets occurred previously, just two days before the June 2018 general elections, when the leaflets designed with the logos of the CHP, HDP and IYI were handed out in Ankara. The fake CHP leaflet promised to ban the headscarf, apparently in a bid to change the minds of religious citizens who would vote for CHP. The leaflet for HDP pledged for a Kurdish state south of Turkey, in a bid to invigorate nationalist feelings of the Turks who were considering voting for the pro-Kurdish party.
The opposition parties have filed lawsuits against the distribution of the leaflets, but the authorities failed to identify agents behind the incident.
Turkish President threatens to jail two opposition party leaders ahead of elections
The post Local electoral board rules to remove fake HDP leaflets featuring separatist maps with opposition parties’ logos appeared first on IPA NEWS.
from IPA NEWS https://ipa.news/2019/03/27/local-electoral-board-rules-to-remove-fake-hdp-leaflets-featuring-separatist-maps-with-opposition-parties-logos/
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