MESOPOTAMIA NEWS : TPK COMMUNISTS TOP HDP (PKK) IN DERSIM (TUNCELI)

Turkey’s only communist mayor scores another election victory

READ IN:    Türkçe  – Mehmet Cetingulec April 8, 2019  – AL MONITOR – Article Summary – Turkey’s first and only communist mayor beat heavyweight rivals in the March 31 local elections, marking another milestone in his extraordinary political journey. As the results of Turkey’s local elections emerged late on March 31, a meme featuring Vladimir Lenin went viral on social media. It showed the Russian revolutionary leader gazing at a computer, a cup of tea in his hand, saying, “We’ve taken Tunceli.”

It was a playful tribute to Turkey’s communists, a tiny but persevering community that won the mayoral race in the city of Tunceli, a left-wing bastion in eastern Turkey with a predominantly Alevi Kurdish population. Building on its debut in the nearby town of Ovacik five years ago, the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) clinched the victory — its first in a provincial capital — with 32.77% of the vote, outstripping heavyweight rivals such as the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which got 28.21% and 20.59% of the vote, respectively. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) mustered only 14% of the vote.

The TKP owes its victory to Fatih Mehmet Macoglu, the outgoing mayor of Ovacik, a town of about 7,000 people, where his unconventional rule since 2014 has earned him nationwide acclaim. Boasting the title of Turkey’s first and only communist mayor, Macoglu now assumes the mayor’s office in Tunceli, the capital of the eponymous province of some 88,000 people.  Macoglu’s victory was front-page news, and even pro-government media commentators paid him tribute.
Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/04/turkey-communist-mayor-scores-another-election-victory.html#ixzz5kaB169tH