On May 15, 2020, the Ministry of Interior dismissed HDP's Siirt Provincial Co-Mayor Berivan Helen Işık, Baykan District Co-Mayor Ramazan Sarsılmaz, Kurtalan District Co-Mayor Baran Akgül, Iğdır Provincial Co-Mayor Yaşar Akkuş and Altınova Town Co-Mayor Casim Budak. Trustees have been appointed in place of dismissed HDP co-mayors. The ousted co-mayors were detained shortly afterwards.

 

While Altınova Co-Mayor Casim Budak was arrested on May 16, Iğdır Co-Mayor Yaşar Akkuş was arrested on May 18.

 

In the last local elections on March 31, 2019, the HDP won 65 municipalities across Turkey, including three metropolitan municipalities, namely Van, Mardin and Diyarbakır. While municipalities have been appointed to 45 HDP municipalities so far, six elected co-mayors were not given their certificates of election because they had been discharged from public service by statutory decrees. 21 co-mayors are currently behind bars. 

 

We have spoken to the Local Governments Supervisor Deputy Co-Chair of the Poeples' Democratic Party,  Salim Kaplan about the trustees and their actions and the grounds on which the mayors were dismissed.

 

Kaplan, who said: "The history have shown us that the Kurdish people and the arhaic neighboring peoples are not the kind of people to submit to these games", also stated, "The best indication of this is the Dersim reality which started on May 4. The action of Seyid Rıza not submitting to the state have once again resurrected in the words of Iğdır Co-Mayor when he said 'May my smile wiegh you on'. Therefore the appointment of trustees will become a trauma in state memory in the future."

 

Kaplan who stated that the government will completely lose consent in case they try to appoint trustees in the west, cited the renewed İstanbul local elections as an example. The vote gap was 13 thousand in the first run, while the gap increased to 800 thousand when the election was renewed with the demand of the government. Kaplan, stating that the government usurps the authority of the western municipalities instead, said: "But the government which has a clear case of arrogance of power, may attempt to appoint trustees in the west as well." Kaplan said: "If a common democracy front does not develop against the usurpation of our municipalities today and the necessary stance is not displayed, everyone should know that İstanbul and Ankara municipalities will be targeted in the second wave. What happened with the CHP's Urla and Ceyhan municipalities is a clear indication of this fact."

 

Kaplan, stating that they will continue to resist against this tyranny as the HDP, said: "We will continue to use all democratic and legitimate means in our struggle for democracy, until all of our friends who are held hostage in prisons are released and returned to their posts. We want this to be known clearly, the evil hegemonic mind of the government will not win an election in Kurdistan, not in a thousand years."

 

 

 

MA / Naci Kaya