E. Erdem Aydin, RDM Advisory
What Happened?
One of Turkey’s top prosecutors launched a case to shut down the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), in the latest series of crackdown against the third largest party in the parliament, accelerating the democratic backsliding in the country.
The top prosecutor of the Turkish Court of Cessation, one of Turkey’s higher courts, filed the lawsuit to Turkey’s Constitutional Court on the grounds that the party aimed to ‘’break the unity of the state with the Turkish people’’ by ‘’acting together’’ with the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and the EU.
Prosecutor’s decision also came immediately after the Turkish Parliament’s revocation of a prominent human rights advocate and HDP MP’s seat in the parliament on Wednesday, following his conviction for ‘’terror propaganda.’’ Omer Faruk Gergerlioglu, who denies the allegations, has become the third HDP MP stripped of their seats this term, following their convictions.
The Context
The move follows years-long government rhetoric and crackdown on the HDP, including the continued detention of its former leader Selahattin Demirtas for over 4 years, despite a recent European Court of Human Rights decision ruling his immediate release.
Following HDP’s continuous successes in Turkish elections since 2015, the government and the party machinery under Turkish President Erdogan have launched systematic attacks on the HDP’s elected officials, on both local and national levels, prosecuting and stripping them of power and appointing administrators in their stead.
Turkish President Erdogan in recent weeks in a pompous ceremony announced a human rights action plan, which turned out to be minor adjustments to the clogged and deeply politicized judicial landscape. Wednesday’s moves have only justified the critics who have expressed doubt at the sincerity of the reform agenda.
What Now?
For Erdogan and the AKP
There is little doubt that the Turkish judiciary, including top judges and prosecutors, is increasingly under President Erdogan’s control, as he directly or indirectly appoints them, as designed by the executive presidential system which is in place since 2017.
Many in Turkey has held that the party closures, a spectre of the 90s, have been a thing of the past, as both Erdogan and his movement repeatedly had to overcome similar obstacles, especially in their early days. It can also be said that such closures and attempts have only popularized him and his movement, as opposed to the establishment which initiated them.
If there is one lesson that Erdogan, his party and the judicial apparatus should draw from recent Turkish history, it is that the party closure attempts usually backfire and undermine the legitimacy and popularity of the initiator, not the other way around.
As these attempts have brought both Erdogan and AKP legitimacy and votes in the past, they are now bound to do so for the new pro-Kurdish party, if the court goes ahead with the decision to close it.
For the Constitutional Court
The odds in the court are in Erdogan’s favour but it is not a clear call. Erdogan’s recent –and much controversial- appointment of another loyalist to the 15-member Constitutional Court, has bolstered his influence in the court, increasing the likelihood of a closure decision.
Erdogan has so far appointed seven members and the parliament under his party’s dominance has appointed another. Despite what seems to be a numerical advantage, the outcome of the vote is not clear and hangs by a thread, due to stance of non-loyalist jurists appointed by the previous president, including the head judge whose vote counts twice in the event of a tide. Nevertheless, the vote is expected to drag for months and be increasingly politicized.
For the Kurds and the Opposition
HDP issued a statement saying that the lawsuit is ‘’a new blow to democracy.’’ It is clear that a possible closure will not resonate well with the Kurdish constituency and actually is a development which the tightly-holding opposition can only dream of, before the critical 2023 presidential elections.
The pro-Kurdish movement has been resilient in forming and reforming parties in the face of closures or threats of closures since the 1990s and from an organization point of view, a possible closure will not pose a major challenge to them.
What it will do is that it will create a lasting mark, especially among the hearts and minds of the new generation, deepening resentment at the establishment, which is represented by Mr. Erdogan and his AKP now, and making reconciliation even harder for the peaceful resolution of Turkey’s Kurdish Issue.
In Conclusion
Despite the Erdogan administration’s recent window-dressing attempts mostly geared towards the US and EU, any expectation of a sincere reform agenda is futile. The proceedings for the closure of the third largest party in the parliament, only state the obvious: Until there is a top-to-bottom change, the democracy party is truly over in Turkey.
E. Erdem Aydin, RDM Advisory