Thank you so much. I very much appreciate you having me on, delighted to be part of the Dr. Karim lecture series. You summarized the grim situation. I will only further elaborate on that and try to give a little political context, explaining the recent developments, both in the context of Erdogan’s campaign against the Kurdish movement in Turkey. Going back to let’s say fall 2014, as well as Erdogan’s furious efforts to stay in power. Well, I’ll say to stay in power at all costs until we see any evidence that this is not at all costs, maybe we’ll turn out not to be, but so far, the evidence seems to be, this is indeed an effort to stay in power at all costs.
For many of the reasons, you mentioned that the closing case against HDP is not at all a surprise, unfortunately. It comes on the heels, as you said, the arrest of the HDP leadership, the arrest of a number of HDP MPs, a number of elected officials who were in office, both before the last, March 2019 municipal elections, and then a new round of arrests in purges of HDP officials who were elected in 2019. Some of whom were in jail, some of whom had simply been stripped of their position, and the towns and cities regions that they controlled in Southeastern Turkey are now under the control of the AKP appointees.
This move against the HDP also comes in the context of Erdogan’s nationalist coalition partner developed with Bahçeli repeatedly calling for it. There are different interpretations of the relationship between Erdogan and Bahçeli. Some people have argued that Bahçeli is actually pressuring Erdogan into taking this move. And that his calls have created the context in which everyone was forced to make this move. Other people seem more plausible to me, suggest that there’s a more nuanced relationship that Bahçeli calls to do this, either functions as trial balloons for Erdogan or simply set the stage, lay the groundwork for Erdogan to then go ahead and make these moves. In either case, I think we can say with confidence everyone would not be doing this If you didn’t think it was ultimately going to help his political fortunes. The question and I knew my colleague will have a better answer for this, that everyone has been asking is why now? Again, the fact this is happening is not surprising. Why at this moment? I can’t offer a good answer.
I can say a few things about how I think it relates to Erdogan’s evolving political strategy. As the system is configured, now, the way Erdogan would lose power is if 50.1% of the country could agree to vote for a different presidential candidate besides him. And I think when you saw the Istanbul mayoral election in 2019 being won by, non- CHP, non-AKP mayor, the way that happened is you had widespread support from HDP voters for the main opposition candidate. This represents, I think the big threat to Erdogan going into the presidential election and much of his policy specifically, the way he’s handled the Kurdish issue seems geared to making sure that the opposition can not effectively unite against him. So what he realizes is by taking this move against the HDP, he will put all of his opponents in the position where they will either have to condemn what he’s doing, thereby potentially alienating nationalists voters within their own ranks, and there are many people who are deeply opposed Erdogan but are also deeply opposed to the HDP and the PKK, they’re real fishers there for Erdogan to exploit, or alternatively, if the opposition party support Erdogan in this, or don’t condemn the HDP closure forcefully enough, this will risk alienating HDP voters will then be less likely to support however much they dislike Erdogan, support Erdogan’s opponent in a future presidential election. So far we’ve seen the main opposition party condemn this move to the smallest flutter opposition parties that come from within Erdogan’s own movement, condemn this move. The IYI party Meral Akşener who’s the main nationalist, a hyper-nationalist opposition figure, who in fact split with Erdogan’s nationalist partner over their support or opposition to Erdogan has been generally critical of Erdogan moves, but a little more evasive.
Again, I think Erdogan’s hope is that the longer this case goes on, the more he makes this case, a central issue in Turkish politics, the more of these fractures in the opposition coalition will deepen the more opposition politicians will be forced to comment on this issue, the more difficult it will be for them to hold their coalition together. So far, it’s not clear that this approach has been a huge success but everyone is good at this. These fractures are real. If he keeps pushing this, if he keeps holding this case in the news, he may succeed. Certainly from his point of view, this is better than talking about the economy, which is the other major issue, which he’s very eager to keep out of political discussions.
I would also add, precisely because Erdogan can control how this case plays out, how long it takes the actual parameters in which that verdict is given, it fits I think within an approach, I’m not sure he knows exactly what his strategy is going to be going into the next election. He’s eager to play politics and he’s eager to gain as many tools and as much flexibility to play politics as he can get in the hopes. I think somehow figuring out a new strategy, a new coalition, a new set of rules for the next election will enable him to win. And this is also all happening in the context of him calling for a new constitution. Again, no, one’s quite clear what he has in mind, what the visions of this constitution would be, but rewriting the constitution and the debate around this gives him more options. At the end of the day, it gives him new ways of playing the game, which fairly, or obviously unfairly he can make work.
The other thing I’d say before wrapping up the way this closure, assuming the closure went ahead, assuming not just that the party was close, but that it’s, I think over 600 members are being slated for a permanent ban from politics, where this to happen, given the structure of the Turkish electoral system, it would guarantee that the AKP would move likely pick up all of the HDP’s or the vast majority of the HDP’s parliamentary seats from the Southeast. One of the things that Erdogan’s opponents had been proposing is a return to the parliamentary system. Turkey used to be a parliamentary system. Now it’s a presidential system. Erdogan is the president. The return to the parliamentary system would be a kind of soft way to reign in Erdogan’s power. But creating a context in which Erdogan could give himself and his party, a dramatic increase in parliamentary seats either undermines this as a potential opposition strategy, I think, or ensures that even if there was a return to the preliminary system, he could make sure that the AKP was in a position to dominate the parliament continue to dominate effectively, dominated even more effectively. as far as how this might play out as you said, they returned the case, because of technical issues with it, I think that’s a tribute to actually how political this was, how badly written the case was. If you’ve read any Turkish legal cases, be they, the marginally plausible ones related to the coup, the completely absurd ones related to Osman Kavala. These are not well-constructed well-written documents. The fact that this one was by all accounts so bad that the court, I think purely for appearance sake, one of them to revise it, to make it at least, maintain the veneer of legality, is really telling. But again, everyone assumes they will resubmit it. The case will go ahead. If for some reason, Erdogan decides that it doesn’t suit his agenda to actually finish the case and close the party. He always has the option to do that. But I do think as you suggested, these things take on a life of their own and whatever reservations people in the AKP may have about party closures, however many doubts they might have about how ultimately effective this is. There are a few mechanisms left to stop this from moving forward.
It was October of 2016, I spoke to a prominent AKP media personality who assured me that despite the indictment that had just been issued against Selahhattin Demirtas, they would never actually arrest him because they knew what a politically counterproductive move that would be. A month later, he was in jail and he remains in jail. Similarly, I think over the years, you’ve seen more moderate people in the AKP suggest that a winning strategy might continue with the all-out war against the PKK and the political campaign, legal campaign against the HDP, but try to present the AKP as a champion of Kurdish rights, make new moves, however, moderate or token on cultural rights as they continued this campaign. Thereby trying to woo, former more conservative HDP voters. I think this is somewhere where Erdogan’s coalition with the nationalists has made it difficult to go through a strategy like this. I’m also not sure at this point, I think it would be terribly effective. You also heard speculation about the idea that everyone may try to create a conservative, loyal pro-AKP Kurdish party. Again, I think at this point, the assumption is that people who couldn’t vote for the HDP weren’t willing to vote for the CHP pay would most likely join the parties that have split off the AKP founded by Babacan and Davutoğlu. That would be a more natural home for these voters than some kind of artificial AKP proxy, the Kurdish party.
We’ll see where this goes, but, there’s very little reason to be optimistic and this will be the process. If nothing else will be managed by Erdogan to ensure the maximum political benefit for him.
We’ll see where this goes, but, there’s very little reason to be optimistic and this will be the process. If nothing else will be managed by Erdogan to ensure the maximum political benefit for him.