BDP promises Kurdish autonomy, wins three metropolitan municipalities

DEMIRTAS PROMISES : AUTONOMY NEXT TIME – BUT NO SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION

1.4.2014 –  AZİZ İSTEGÜN, DİYARBAKIR – Zaman – The Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which emphasized its promise for autonomy for the Kurdish-populated regions of Turkey during its election campaign, won three metropolitan municipalities, eight provinces and 66 districts in Sunday’s local elections.

The BDP was able to retain all the municipalities it already held and took the three highly important cities of Mardin, Ağrı and Bitlis from the Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Ahmet Türk, who is affiliated with the BDP although he ran as an independent, was elected mayor of Mardin, winning 52 percent of the vote. In Bitlis, Hüseyin Olan won the race for mayor with 44 percent of the vote. In Ağrı, the BDP’s Sırrı Sakık won what was a highly contested race.

Voters in Diyarbakır, Batman, Siirt, Şırnak, Hakkari, Van and Tunceli opted for the BDP once again. In Şanlıurfa, former Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir was unable to win, but the party increased its votes in this province significantly. In Muş and Bingöl, voters chose the AK Party. The only municipality the BDP won outside of eastern and southeastern Anatolia was the Akdeniz district of Mersin. Of the overall vote, the BDP garnered 4.4 percent and its sister party, the People’s Democracy Party (HDP), whose candidates ran in Western cities, got 2 percent of the vote. The BDP missed its goal of raising its vote tally to 8.8 percent. However, with 6.4 percent of the vote between the BDP and HDP, the pro-Kurdish parties did much better than their predecessor, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), which only took 5.7 percent. The results indicate that the east and the southeast are ready for autonomous rule. An initial analysis reveals that both the BDP and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) benefited from the ongoing settlement process between Turkey and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The AK Party’s vote count increased in almost every province in the region, although it was unable to take more municipalities. The BDP took things up a notch, winning Mardin, Bitlis and Ağrı.

Vote for autonomy

BDP leader Selahattin Demirtaş said his party had done well in the local elections. He said the vote indicated that the party’s solution of “democratic autonomy” has found support among the people.

“Municipal services should be provided multilingually and multiculturally. Our municipalities will make an effort to ensure that the infrastructure to make this possible is established, from education in one’s mother tongue to health services in one’s mother tongue. We will make efforts to publish textbooks [in Kurdish] and open model classrooms for education in Kurdish. We promised this to the people, and the people voted,” Demirtaş said.

Speaking at his party’s Diyarbakır branch, Demirtaş said the party’s success wasn’t easy to achieve in competition against a party that has the advantages of being in government. He noted that two more elections are due over the next 1.5 years, adding that general elections might be moved up to an earlier date. Although in Diyarbakır, the party’s stronghold, the BDP fell to 57 percent from 65 percent in the last elections, it did very well in Van, where it won every single district municipality in addition to the metropolitan municipality. A recent law on metropolitan municipalities, which granted Mardin and Van metropolitan status, also helped the BDP. Hüda-Par, a Kurdish Islamist party, participated in the elections for the first time this year but failed to garner much support. It got 4 percent in Diyarbakır, 8 percent in Batman, 2 percent in Mardin and 6 percent in Bitlis.

ARABAŞLILK Two grandsons of Sheikh Said voted in

In another development in eastern cities, two grandchildren of Sheikh Said, a rebel who led an uprising in Dersim against the state, were elected as mayors in the Tekman and Hınıs districts of Erzurum. According to preliminary results, Hasan Basri Fırat was elected in Hınıs and Ali Sait Fırat was elected in Tekman. Both are the sons of the 93-year-old Sheikh Ahmet, the only surviving son of Sheikh Said. Said was executed in 1925 for starting an uprising in eastern Anatolia.