Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s electoral victory is roiling the country’s Kurdish movement, with its most popular leader declaring from jail that he is withdrawing from active politics. The announcement Wednesday by Selahattin Demirtas, former co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), presages debate on a future course to be charted ahead of critical local elections that are to be held in March 2024. Kurdish voters are poised to play a key role as they did in 2019 when they helped the opposition wrest key cities, notably Ankara and Istanbul, from Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
The key question is whether the alliance between the HDP and the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and its Table of Six partners can endure. Or will the Kurds decide to back Erdogan? The outcome will have effects on Kurds beyond Turkey’s borders in Syria and Iraq.
Either way, despite the dire predictions about the future of Turkey’s democracy, electoral politics continue to matter and the Kurds remain in the game, but only if Erdogan chooses to play.
Going, going, not gone
