Kurdish Parties Plan to Enter Parliament and
Stay There
Turkish Zaman By: Ayşe Karabat
May 11, 2007
The decision by deputies of the Democratic
Society Party (DTP) to enter the elections as independent candidates will give
them the opportunity to establish a parliamentary group in the wake of the
general elections.
However success in this strategy depends on good planning, as the Parliament on
Thursday passed a law that makes the task of independent candidates harder.
Should they succeed in making it to Parliament, how they will act in the
Parliament is another question.
The DTP -- which hopes to have 37 deputies in
the next Parliament, meaning it will far exceed the 20 deputies necessary to
form a parliamentary group -- held a meeting in Diyarbakır on Monday and Tuesday
in order to discuss its election strategy. The party decided that its deputies
are to campaign as independents, that at least 40 percent of the candidates will
be female and that election committees will be formed to plan local voting
strategy. In addition they will not nominate any candidate from among the DTP
mayors.
The DTP also decided that former Democracy Party (DEP) deputies Leyla Zana,
Hatip Dicle, Selim Sadak and Orhan Doğan, previously imprisoned on
terrorism-related charges, will also be nominated as candidates, despite the
uncertainty surrounding their legal situation. The decision of DTP to run as
independent candidates is based on the former experience of the party in failing
to pass the 10 percent threshold for parliamentary representation, despite the
party's success in garnering a very high number of votes in certain cities with
predominantly Kurdish populations. In the 2002 elections the Democratic People's
Party (DEHAP), a predecessor of the DTP, received about 60 percent of the votes
cast in Diyarbakır, but was not able to enter parliament as their overall haul
was only 6.2 percent nationwide.
However, with independent candi-dates -- who do not face the same 10 percent
barrier -- and good planning, the DTP believes it can have up to five deputies
from Diyarbakır alone. The good planning mentioned here refers to strategic
voting to ensure that the Kurdish voters elect as many independent candidates as
possible, rather than just giving a smaller number of candidates a greater
majority. The initial plan of the Kurdish groups was to distribute enough
candidate “name tags” to the voters in order to guarantee the election of as
many deputies as possible. But the Parliament made a constitutional amendment on
Thursday making it harder for independent candidates to run in the elections and
use this strategy. In the past voters could use these tags (on which the name of
the independent candidate is written) to vote, but now the names of the
independent candidates must be placed in the “unified ballot,” where voters will
need to find their preferred candidates and vote for him or her. This might lead
to voter confusion, especially when there are several independent candidates for
the same constituency, and in a region where illiteracy is still very much a
reality.
Other parties are planning to nominate independent candidates from cities that
are DTP strongholds. But high-ranking officials at the DTP are claming that
their party organization is strong enough to cope with these challenges. DTP
Deputy Chairman Sırrı Sakık told Today’s Zaman that they will form election
committees in every constituency to make plans so as not to waste votes.
“The members of these committees won’t be candidates themselves,” said Sakık.
“We are aiming for at least five deputies from Diyarbakır. In order to succeed
in this the committee will make geographical and mathematical calculations,”
continued Sakık, while denying that they will separate votes on basis of gender.
“We didn’t decide on the system of organizing the voters yet,” Sakık stated.
Earlier news was leaked to the press that the DTP was to ask female voters to
vote for a particular candidate and male voters to vote for another. But this
system would have guaranteed only two deputies, the main reason Sakık did not
favor it. An alternative method highly popular with party members is to group
the voters according to their ages for different candidates.
Possible candidates
Apart from organizing voters, the DTP is running also after celebrity
candidates. There were some rumors that Gülten Kaya, wife of deceased singer
Ahmet Kaya, and Gencay Gürsoy, head of the Turkish Doctors Union (TTB), would be
among their candidates. But Sakık believes that it is too early to declare the
candidates.
But it seems to be certain that DTP co-chairmen Aysel Tuğluk and Ahmet Türk, and
former DEP deputies Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Selim Sadak and Orhan Doğan will be
among the candidates. Speaking to Today’s Zaman, Türk pointed out that the files
against these names are in the Supreme Court of Appeals.
“According to us there is no obstacle for them to be candidates as the decision
about them have not yet been finalized. The decision about their candidacy will
be made by the Supreme Election Board (YSK),” Türk said.
According to Turkish law people convicted for crimes of terrorism are not
eligible to be elected to the Parliament. The former DEP deputies have not yet
been convicted but their position is still under discussion. The YSK must issue
notice of candidates’ ineligibility by June 20.
The DTP is also not going to nominate its current mayors, declared Sakık. “They
came in order to serve and they still have projects to complete,” he stressed.
Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir, already a symbolic name among the Kurdish
youth, confirmed that he won’t be a candidate. Baydemir believes that other DTP
mayors will follow his lead.
How they will act?
The DTP not only needs to decide how to organize its voters in order to enter
the Parliament, but also on how to behave in the Parliament if the independent
candidates are elected. In the 1991 elections the People’s Labor Party (HEP),
another predecessor of the DTP, formed an election coalition with Social
Democratic People’s Party (SHP) and managed to win 19 seats in Parliament. But
at the swearing-in ceremony Leyla Zana’s insistence on using Kurdish aroused a
reaction by the Parliament and the turmoil ended with the closure of the party
and brought about the imprisonment of its deputies.
One of those 19 deputies was Selim Sadak, a member of the DTP Central Executive
Board (MYK). Sadak said on Thursday that they will not attempt to use Kurdish.
“We don’t think shouting slogans in the Parliament is the correct thing to do.
We will work for the democratization of Turkey. We want to be a party of
Turkey,” Sadak said.
Tarık Ziya Ekinci, a prominent Kurdish intellectual, evaluated the strategy of
the DTP and said that he does not think the party will repeat the same mistakes.
“Many years have past and they are able to realize the realities of Turkey”,
Ekinci told Today’s Zaman, pointing out that if the DTP nominates Turkish
intellectuals and charismatic names in big cities like İstanbul and Ankara they
might have a chance to win seats from those cities as well.
