HDP passes threshold, ending 13 years of AK Party majority
HDP supporters celebrate the party’s 13 percent election result in İstanbul on Sunday. (Photo: Reuters)
June 08, 2015, Monday/ 16:06:28/ TODAY'S ZAMAN / ANKARA
Turkey's pro-Kurdish party managed to beat the odds, pass the election threshold and come first in 16 provinces, allowing it to field 79 deputies in the next Parliament and causing the ruling party to lose the majority it has enjoyed since 2002.
According to the unofficial results of the election on Sunday, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) took 40.8 percent of the vote, down from 49.8 percent in the last parliamentary election in 2011. The AK Party's failure to secure an overall majority marks an end to more than a decade of single-party rule and is seen as a major setback for both President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.
However, the most anticipated aspect of Turkey's 2015 general election was whether the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), a political party affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), would be able to pass the 10 percent election threshold and enter Parliament as a party.
The HDP managed to garner around 13 percent of the popular vote, coming first in 16 of Turkey's 81 provinces, mainly in the Kurdish-populated east and southeast. This translates into 79 deputies in the upcoming Parliament. Yet the HDP also surprised analysts when it came first in Iğdır, receiving 55 percent of the vote in a province known for its support for the right-leaning Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The HDP received a historic 78 percent in Diyarbakır, the largest province in the Southeast, allowing it receive 10 of the available 11 seats.
The HDP also took a large share of the votes from abroad, 21.03 percent, demonstrating a considerable margin over the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), which got 17.02 percent of the overseas vote. The HDP came out as the largest party among Turkish citizens residing in Canada, Poland, Italy, Ukraine, Finland, Kazakhstan, Japan, Greece, Sweden and the UK.
Previously, the possibility of passing the threshold had seemed so impossible to the HDP that they would turn to independent nominees in the elections. In the 2011 elections the HDP fielded 36 deputies this way, allowing it to form a group in Parliament. However, the HDP's luck changed in 2014 when HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş decided to run for president against then-Prime Minister Erdoğan and other candidate Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu. Demirtaş received 9.76 percent, instilling a sense of optimism into the HDP's supporters.
Erdoğan denies Kurdish issue after starting settlement process
Another one of the reasons for the AK Party's failure and the HDP's gain can be attributed to Erdoğan's indecisive stance regarding the Kurdish issue. Despite the ongoing settlement process to resolve the country's decades-old terrorism problem and issue of granting wider rights to the Kurdish minority, Erdoğan said during a public rally in March that there has never been a Kurdish issue in Turkey.
“My brothers, there has never been any problem called the Kurdish issue in this country. However, there are intentional efforts to keep it on the agenda. … We ended it [the issue] in a speech I made in Diyarbakır in 2005, and that is it,” Erdoğan said during the rally in Balıkesir.
At the end of 2012, the government, headed by Erdoğan, launched the settlement process with the jailed leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan.
HDP puts Erdoğan's presidential dreams to rest
The issue of whether the HDP would pass the election threshold held the utmost importance due to a number of factors. The surpassing of the threshold by the pro-Kurdish party also meant putting an end to the AK Party's, and more importantly Erdoğan's, dream of an executive style presidency in the country.
Erdoğan strongly advocated for a presidential system that would give broad powers to the president. He asked his supporters to elect at least 400 deputies to the 550-seat Parliament in the elections on Sunday in a bid to enable the introduction of a presidential system through an amendment to the Constitution.
He seeks to exercise more executive power as president, contradicting his former stance on this issue as stated in a speech in 2007. In this speech, Erdoğan underlined the importance of separation of powers and claimed to be opposed to any discourse or move that would lead to a “double-headed management” in the government. He stressed back then that the president's powers should be limited for a better functioning democracy.
Gov't's inaction in Kobani helps HDP
The government's failure to defend against a siege by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Kobani -- a predominantly Kurdish town near the Syrian border with Turkey -- bolstered Kurdish nationalist sentiment.
Violence erupted on Oct. 6 and 7 in Turkey's prominently Kurdish southeastern regions following reports that ISIL was close to capturing the town of Kobani, which was being defended by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian-based affiliate of the outlawed PKK.
Protesters, angry at the government for not intervening to save the town despite a heavy military presence at the border, took to the streets nationwide. More than 40 people died during the protests, mainly in southeastern Turkey, while hundreds of people -- including 140 members of the security forces -- were injured.
Stating that one week before the protests the prime minister had promised assistance to help secure Kobani and that if Davutoğlu had made a speech after their phone call the protests might never have happened, Demirtaş said recently that he told the prime minister: “There are people on the streets everywhere, let's please intervene. Let's please help each other, whatever it takes, and make sure that the border town does not fall into the hands of ISIL.”
Demirtaş rules out coalition with AK Party
Demirtaş dismissed the possibility of a coalition with the AK Party and said the election outcome had put an end to talk of the executive presidential system championed by Erdoğan.
Speaking late on June 7 in İstanbul, Demirtaş said: “As of this moment, the debate on the presidency, the debate about dictatorship, has come to an end in Turkey. Turkey has returned from the edge of a cliff.”
“We will not form a coalition with the AKP [AK Party], we stand behind our words. We will be in Parliament as a strong opposition [party],” Demirtaş promised.
AK Party had benefitted from high threshold
Until now the ruling AK Party benefited enormously from the very high election threshold that was introduced by the military regime following a coup in 1980. This was most notable when in 2002 all five parties that had passed the 10 percent threshold in the 1999 elections, as well as two other major parties, failed to pass the threshold, allowing the AK Party to field 364 deputies out of a 550-deputy Parliament with only 33.4 percent of the popular vote.
The True Path Party (DYP) received 9.55 percent of the vote, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) received 8.34 percent, the Youth Party (GP) received 7.25 percent, the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP), the precursor of HDP, received 6.23 percent, and the Motherland Party (ANAP) received 5.13 percent, leaving them unable to assume any seats in Parliament. One of the most criticized aspects of the 2002 general election was the fact that 46.33 percent of the valid votes, or over 14.5 million people, were without representation in Parliament.
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