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By Harem Karem:
The Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) has secured an historic result in the Turkish general election by winning 36 seats, with most of its new seats taken from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Among its victorious candidates there are 11 women. The party has begun a crucial journey towards resolving the Kurdish issue in Turkey, starting with constitutional reform.
Not only the eligible voters in Turkey but also Kurds across Kurdistan and around the world are eagerly following the BDP’s progress, expecting the party to commit its all to the challenge ahead and to achieving its goals.
Erdogan has sailed through to the prime ministerial post for the third time and the AKP has won a majority once more, with 326 seats out 550. Now there is no basis for him to blame the previous government for shortages or invent excuses for not fulfilling promises made during the campaign.
Erdogan made a number of promises in the past two months, notably for radical reforms including the replacement of Turkey’s 29-year old, undemocratic constitution which was written by an army general.
Although the AKP is the winner, its results fell short of what it needed to re-write the constitution on its own: it will require an additional 41 votes in parliament.
Altan Tan, elected for the BDP in Diyarbakır, told ‘Today’s Zaman’: “The AK Party majority is below 330, so it can’t draft the constitution alone. It absolutely has to talk to us and reach consensus…If he (Erdogen) doesn’t give us more clues on this, we will make parliament a very difficult place for him. Similarly, the same thing will happen if he doesn’t propose a democratic constitution.”
With the Arab Spring fresh in everyone’s minds, the BDP is demanding Kurdish autonomy and threatening a campaign of civil disobedience, while the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) threatens to wage a major and intense revolutionary war, “different from the Arab Spring”, if Kurdish cultural and political rights are not met in the new constitution.
They leave Erdogan with little or no option but to stop denying 20 million Kurds their rights.
Additional to these dilemmas, the bigger picture for Erdogen – from his vision for the Middle East to adopting a new foreign policy and Turkey’s aspiration to join the EU – also relies on the new constitution. As he said in his post-election speech: “This election is important not just for Turkey but for the Middle East too”.
