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By Harem Karem:
BDP leader Hamid Gailani
With Turkey’s general election fast approaching, party leaders continue their restless campaign throughout the country, including places they have never before set foot in. Only this week Diyarbakır, in north Kurdistan, hosted three rallies.
First came the Republican People’s Party (CHP), followed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and yesterday (Saturday) the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), which succeeded the Democratic Society Party (DTP) following its closure for alleged connections to the PKK.
The CHP and AKP are not really rivals but the competition is getting more serious between the BDP and the AKP as 12 June gets closer. Prime Minister Erdogan has attacked the BDP on several occasions calling it “the BDP terror organisation” and he appears to have no solution for the Kurdish issue in Turkey while he keeps avoiding mentioning the Kurdish question in his speeches.
The BDP’s leader, Hamid Gailani, on Saturday addressed thousands of supporters in Diyarbakir. “12 June will be the end of Erdogan and AKP, we are expecting to win 35 seats” he said.
While the CHP’s leader, Kılıcdaroglu, and AKP’s Erdogan promised new developments in the region, on their only visit there in a very long time, the popular BDP leader Hamid Gailani focused on more freedom for the ethnic minorities and the possibility of semi-autonomy for Kurds in the region, similar to in south Kurdistan.
The 2009 local elections showed the popularity of the BDP as they managed to take control of Diyarbakir city council with 59% of the votes, while the AKP got 31%. The head of the South-Eastern Journalists’ Association, Faruk Balıkcı, predicts the AKP will get four or five candidates elected there while the BDP will get six deputies.
Everyone hopes that the upcoming election will bring an end to the repression of the Kurds and the denial of their basic rights by the Turkish government. If not, it’s highly likely there will be unrest in the region on an epic scale, as the jailed PKK leader has warned.
