How the Kurdish factor had a boomerang effect in Erdogan's election defeat

The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) of Turkey — which has a predominantly Kurdish base and has suffered heavy government oppression since 2015 — played a decisive role in the government’s loss of the big cities, including the crucial Istanbul, in the March 31 local elections. As part of its political strategy in the country’s west, the HDP sat out the mayoral races in big cities such as Istanbul, Izmir, Adana and the capital city of Ankara. Paradoxically, the HDP absence from the ballots became the party’s way of proving its political presence and weight.

The HDP’s no-show in big cities aimed to precipitate the defeat of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party, but to achieve this, the HDP had to do another thing: Get its supporters out to the polls to cast strategic votes for the Nation Alliance, comprised of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the right-wing Good Party. The election results show that the party pulled it off.

According to the vote count that emerged in Istanbul on the morning of April 1, the CHP’s candidate for metropolitan mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, placed first with 48.8% of the vote — or some 4,171,000 votes out of the total of 8,860,000 valid votes. He had a lead of some 21,000 votes over Binali Yildirim of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), who got some 4,149,000 votes or 48.55%.

The number and share of Imamoglu’s votes correspond to the combined totals the CHP, the Good Party and the HDP mustered in Istanbul in the parliamentary elections nine months ago. The three parties collected 46% of the vote — or some 4,340,000 votes out of the total of 9,438,000 valid votes in the June 24 polls. In terms of shares, the CHP had 26% and the Good Party 7.8%. The HDP’s share was 12%, corresponding to some 1,146,000 votes.