HDP's massive election rally in Istanbul, May 30, 2015. Demotix/ Sahan Nuholglu. All rights reserved.On
April 11, the PKK and the Turkish military engaged in the first major clash
since the beginning of the much-awaited and short-lived ceasefire of 2013,
leaving 5 PKK militants dead and four Turkish soldiers injured. This clash,
viewed as “pre-planned and fake” by the HDP, shows how taut the political
situation is in the run-up to the general elections. HDP co-chair, Selahattin Demirtaş has
accused the government of initiating ‘dirty games’, and Erdoğan has countered
in kind by accusing the PKK of “trying to pressure people to vote for the
HDP”.
The
increased salience of the People’s Democracy Party (the HDP) in Turkish
domestic politics will be a wild card in the June elections. Previously a
highly marginalized party predominantly aimed at ensuring and protecting
Kurdish rights, in recent years (and particularly since Gezi Park), the HDP has
begun to appeal to a much broader spectrum of Turkish society, and has finally entered
into the normative battle taking place over Turkey’s public sphere as one of
the main runners in what is now a four party race.
Controversially
in this year’s elections, the HDP will run as a party in their first attempt to
break Turkey’s punitive electoral threshold in 13 years, which currently stands
at 10 percent – the highest in Europe. In order to achieve this formidable task
they will need to pull support from both the ruling party (the AKP) and from
the main opposition party (the CHP). This was previously assumed to be
impossible due to the enduring animosity bordering on xenophobia between
nationalists (particularly Kemalists) and Kurds. But now it seems to be a
viable goal. The widened appeal of the HDP can be attributed in no small part
to a successful re-branding campaign. More commonly known by their nom de
guerre; the BDP (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi), they have decided to run under
the western front of the HDP, perhaps due to the association amongst some
sections of society between the BDP and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party
(the PKK). Whichever way you look at it, this is a departure from the party’s
ethnic-based political history. It also signals a swing in geographical focus,
away from the party’s traditional roots (and electorate) in the Kurdish
dominated south-east of the country (these votes are largely secure) toward the
west – aiming to collect leftist or liberal voters disenchanted with the
nationalism and conservatism of the main political parties. The success of Demirtaş
in the presidential elections, during which he received nearly 10 percent of
the national vote, shows the increasing ability of the HDP to do precisely
this.
A
new social contract?
This
transformation of state-society and society-society relations could be seen as a by-product of the Gezi Park protests, arising from the increased understanding
of the structural violence felt by Kurdish communities amongst broad segments
of society. Not only did citizens, most of whom had never attended a protest before,
experience firsthand the physical violence extended by the state to peaceful
protesters, they also gained an understanding of the more ubiquitous discursive
violence disseminated by the state’s disciplinary apparatus; the neo-liberal
media, whose failure to objectively report on the protests shed some light on
issues suffered by Kurds for decades. As Figen Yüksekdağ, the Co-Chair of the
HDP, asserted; “All components of the HDP are Gezi protestors, they are the
subjects of Gezi.”[1]
The
HDP has assimilated
Gezi's oppositional message down to their insignia; a tree. Presenting itself
as a party representative of all marginalized sections of society; from LGBT
groups to environmentalists, the HDP now appeals to a much larger electorate
than was previously thought possible in such a historically monocultural
society. Demonstrative of a changing attitude
in Turkey were the solidarity protests organised after soldiers attacked a
Kurdish demonstration in Lice, an unprecedented show of moral outrage and support
for Kurds suffering state violence. By contesting this, citizens actively began
to redefine the meaning and practice of citizenship in Turkey, forming new
alliances based on an eroded form of nationalism. A kind of symbiotic network
of unlikely quotidian allies formed during and since Gezi Park, in self-defence
against the authoritarian cultural homogenization of the private and public
spheres. They began to develop into the sort of cohesive movement once
designated by Raymond Williams as “the emergent” – a movement united purely in
contradistinction to the hegemonic 'other'.[2]
This cohesion is what
has been seen in recent events (particularly the debates surrounding the AKP’s
controversial and draconian ‘security reform package’[3]) and during
the pre-election fervour. The rise of the HDP has seen the party’s political
message resounding more throughout society, particularly among the Gezi youth
with whom the message of democracy, freedom, pluralism, LGBT, worker’s and
women’s rights resonates strongly. At the same time there have been internal
transformations within the party itself in the attempt to become a more viable
opposition. But in addition there is this factor of an anti-Erdoğan (emergent) coalition
brought about by Gezi Park and the events that followed. As Nabi Avcı stated in the early days of Gezi, “We have
succeeded in five days in doing something that the opposition wouldn’t have
been able to do in years. And we have made very different segments, groups and
fractions meet each other under the dust who would never have gotten together
under normal conditions.”[4] This remains as true today
as it was then.
The HDPs new support base is the product of a breakdown in the
ideological ghettoization and atomization of Turkish society, combined with a
corresponding rise in centralization and authoritarianism within its executive
branch. This change was further compounded by a widespread realization that the
traditional opposition parties (the CHP and the MHP) do not have the capacity
to counteract or really challenge the AKPs unilateralism, and subsequent disillusionment
with the traditional political process of strategic voting and hereditary
partisanship.
As such, the HDP is attempting to fill the post-Gezi vacuum and collect
the votes of the disenfranchised and disaffected, particularly appealing to
those with the left affiliations common amongst Turkey’s liberal youth. This
new appeal to non-Kurdish voters may become a gateway to a new form of social
democracy, allowing for the emergence or strengthening of alternative but
complementary claims over identity, rights and meta-social visions, unified
against the perceived authoritarianism of Turkey’s main centrist and rightist
parties.
How happy is the one who says I am Turk?
The
HDP candidates list for the June election has a platform of inclusivity, a
microcosm of Turkey’s diverse ethnic and ideational make-up embedded within it,
ranging from Armenian, Yezidi and Alevi backgrounds, and incorporating the
religious component by nominating former Diyarbakır mufti Nimetullah
Erdoğmuş in order to attract votes from the conservative and Islamist sections
of Kurdish society, votes which have in previous years gone to the AKP. This
was also plausibly a strategy by which to appease those concerned that the
clashes between Islamist and leftist Kurds last October will become a recurring
divide within the party itself. Such attempts to transcend Turkey’s entrenched
ideological/ ethnic polarization were mirrored in Demirtaş’s recent
statement; “You are not only Turkish, Kurdish; not solely Armenian, Arab,
Circassian, Georgian or Bosniak. You are all of them. You are not only Alevi,
Sunni, Syriac, or Yazidi. You are not solely Jewish, Hebrew, or Christian. You
are all.”
This
inclusivity transforms Turkey, normatively and discursively, and may well yield
interesting results during the election. Additionally, the HDP is the only
party in Turkey, and one of the few in the world, boasting near gender
equality, with 40 percent of their parliamentary committee intended to be women.
The HDP is also the only party in Turkey with openly LGBT representatives. Haltice
Altinisik, HDP deputy chairwoman further summed
up their ideology; “even if we are perceived as a pro-Kurdish party, look
around here.We are also pro-women, pro-Alevi, pro-Christian,
pro-Muslim and pro-peace. When you listen to Demirtaş, I believe you
hear he is also in support of the working class, the oppressed. So being a
Kurd is just one of the identities around you. We aim to unite the left
in Turkey.” Essentially, the HDP can be seen as a party bringing about a
new era in Turkish politics where pluralism is more than an empty discourse but
an inclusive practice.
On the road to peace?
The HDP’s role in the ongoing and fragile peace-process with the PKK has
given them unique leverage over the AKP (and thus greater credibility within
society), which most recently manifested itself during negotiations over the security
bill. Whilst the AKP appeared immune to the traditional opposition’s attempts
to block the bill, the HDP were able to pressure them to negotiate amendments
on 16 key points of the bill, and later able to ensure that the remaining
articles were subject to committee review and revision.
Their current sway over an otherwise unrestrained regime highlights just
how risky the HDPs strategy is however. If their gamble fails, Kurds, as
represented by the HDP, will be without any leverage and representation in
parliament and the peace-process could quickly unravel. This could well spark widespread
social unrest in the south-east which, thanks to the security bill, will subsequently
be subject to even greater police and military repression. Furthermore, although
the HDP and the PKK have received a boost in prestige, both due to their
participation in the peace-process and the Kurds success against ISIS in Kobane,
neither of them can claim a monopoly of control over their communities. The
restless (and oft reckless) young nationalists and radical Islamic groups such
as Kurdish Hezbollah, may well take matters into their own hands should the
HDPs democratic gamble fail to pay off.[5] The results of this were
already visible during October 2014, when clashes left 50 dead and hundreds
injured during protests over the AKP’s Syria policy. Without a legitimate
political outlet for such angst, civil unrest could increase and the violent
separatism of the 90s could resume.[6]
Is it over-dramatizing to argue that the fate of Turkish democracy hangs
in this balance? Should the HDP fail to surpass the ten percent electoral
threshold their seats will be given to the next biggest party, the AKP, and
Erdoğan will certainly achieve the 400 seats in parliament he needs to
drastically re-order the political system and create an executive presidency, prolonging
and entrenching his control. This would have numerous socio-political ramifications,
not least of which is the consolidation of power in the executive branch. Then
there is the further marginalization and repression of Turkey’s ‘other’ 50
percent. Should they succeed however, the AKPs now 13 year single-party rule
could come to an end, resuming Turkey’s previously long-standing tradition of
unstable coalition governments. The final option foresees the return of the
AKP, but as a weakened party without the potential to either radically
restructure the executive or to unilaterally change the constitution. Survey
data so far seems to indicate the latter option to be the most likely,
revealing small but important fluctuations in voting trends in western Turkey,
particularly in Istanbul where Kurdish and leftist communities are strongest.
There have been further and more dramatic fluctuations in some of the country’s
ethnically diverse eastern provinces, particularly those suffering the detrimental
effects of the AKPs chaotic Syria policy such as Hatay and Gaziantep, draining
votes from the AKP and distributing them primarily to the HDP and the MHP.
The MHP with their strong nationalism, and the aggressive secularism of
the CHP may attract more votes, but only from one corner of Turkey’s
multi-polarized society, marginalizing and excluding others. The stale and
lifeless principles of these two opposition parties and their attempts to
preserve an archaic established order loses out in comparison to the policies
and narratives of the HDP or even the AKP, who present a grandiose dream of
change, of a ‘new’ Turkey, albeit from opposite ends of the social spectrum.
Unlike the other parties however, the HDP has a unifying rather than a
divisive or fear-based narrative and thus has the capacity to draw votes from a
much broader spectrum of society, which although fewer in number, gives the
party greater legitimacy as a whole. Legitimacy has been a crucial and lacking
concept in Turkish politics in recent years, an issue which has achieved
particular salience since Gezi Park. Should the HDP lose and the AKP come out
strengthened, the legitimacy crisis facing the incumbent government, and particularly
the infamously divisive President Erdoğan, may further entrench ideological
schisms in an already dangerously divided society. Therefore HDP success is important
not only for the Kurds or the leftists, it is crucial for maintaining some
semblance of unification in a highly fragmented patchwork-society. Essentially,
the HDP are the material holding together Turkey’s frayed social fabric,
without which the social contract which binds state and society, ruler to ruled,
could disintegrate. And the consequences of that, for stability, democracy and
human rights, would be dire.
[1] The
People’s Democratic Party- HDP English. https://hdpenglish.wordpress.com/
[2]
Williams, Raymond. Marxism and literature. Vol. 1. Oxford
University Press, 1977. p.122
[3]
Fildes, H. “Turkey’s Security Bill: The Past and Present of Legislation of
Violence and Police Impunity in Turkey”, Vol. IV, Issue 3, March, 2015,
pp.57-62, Centre for Policy and Research on Turkey (ResearchTurkey), London,
Research Turkey. (http://researchturkey.org/?p=8380)
[4]
Bozkurt, G. 2013, Gezi Park protests may turn 2014 election calculations upside
down. Hürriyet Daily News. May 13.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/gezi-park-protests-may-turn-2014-election-calculations-upside-down.aspx?pageID=238&nID=48512&NewsCatID=338
[5] Gareth
Jenkins, The HDP's Election Gambit and Turkey's Tolling Alarm Bells, Turkey
Analyst, vol. 8, no. 2. 2015.
[6] Martin van
Bruinessen, Kurdish Ethno-Nationalism versus Nation-Building States. Collected
Articles, Istanbul: ISIS, 2000