The pro-Kurdish party DEM (new name of the HDP) indicated on Sunday that it would present its own candidate for mayor of Istanbul at the end of March, at the risk of seeing the Turkish megacity escape the opposition which had conquered it in 2019 The official name of the candidate will be revealed on February 9, announced to the press the spokesperson for the Party of People's Equality and Democracy (DEM), Aysegul Dogan.
But the name of Basak Demirtas, wife of the former co-president of the party Selahattin Demirtas, imprisoned since 2016 and officially retired from politics, has already been circulating for some time with insistence to represent the DEM during the municipal elections on March 31.
Opponents of this candidacy suspect an arrangement with the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: letting the ruling AKP party win by depriving the opposition and the outgoing CHP mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of his support, in exchange for the release of Selahattin Demirtas.
Ekrem Imamoglu won in 2019 thanks to the support of the Iyi party (right) and the indirect support of the pro-Kurdish party, which then decided not to present a candidate to avoid dividing the opposition vote in this mixed city of 17 million inhabitants which is home to a large Kurdish community.
Convicted of
“insulting”
officials, Ekrem Imamoglu, 52, risks more than two years of ineligibility if his sentence is confirmed on appeal, which had already deprived him of running for president.
Kurdish voters have not forgiven the attitude of his party which turned against them between the first and second rounds of the presidential election last May.