La DEM Chose

Issue #199

Break ups should never leave you broke. Enter the ex-lovers market, where İstanbul residents sold leftover items from past relationships this week – and just in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s a bye-byer’s market.

In this week’s recap:

• Opposition parties step into the ring

• Erdoğan visits Cairo to rebuild ties

• NATO alliance tests and texts

• Disaster strikes controversial mine site

• CB signals more monetary tightening

• Ground con/trolls to Major Tom

And in our original reports:

• Gonca Tokyol on how the New Welfare Party might tilt key municipal races

• Onur Hasip and Diego Cupolo’s deep dive on Turkey’s Zero Waste program 

• Verda Uyar and Diego Cupolo on campaign strategies for the İstanbul race

DEM İstanbul candidate Meral Danış Beştaş is co-running with Murat Çepni.

"Why should we have to care about the people in the West," asked a friend in Diyarbakır back in 2022. It was a September evening in the Kurdish capital's fancy Yüzevler district and people from different shades of the Kurdish movement were dining together. The topic of discussion was the then-upcoming 2023 elections. 

"Did anyone care about us," another asked, referring to the armed conflict that followed the collapse of the 2013-2015 Peace Process. "They removed all of our representatives," he added. "We gave them İstanbul, but they didn't even come down to thank us. As Kurds, we need to take care of ourselves." 

"They" was the government, "them" was the CHP, and though all at the table were either open or in favor discussions with the AKP, their party at the time, the HDP, supported the opposition's presidential candidate Kılıçdaroğlu in May 2023. 

Following Kılıçdaroğlu’s loss and the collapse of the opposition alliance, the HDP’s successor party has pursued a different strategy for the upcoming March 31 elections. 

The DEM Party announced its final decision to join the İstanbul race at the beginning of February and named Meral Danış Beştaş and Murat Çepni as joint mayoral candidates last Friday (Feb. 9). 

Some defined the decision as seeking to avoid "more prominent names". Still, Roj Girasun, director of the Diyarbakır-based Rawest research center, told Turkey recap that the DEM Party's positioning would be definitive for the İstanbul election results. 

"So far, the DEM Party has only put forward a candidate against İmamoğlu and has not yet demonstrated a political position," Girasun said. "If [DEM's] candidates do not engage in political campaigns against the local government, this will increase the votes going to İmamoğlu." 

Girasun believes DEM can have a powerful campaign with Beştaş and Çepni, though he noted the decision not to nominate Başak Demirtaş could decrease voter turnout among DEM supporters.

The 47-year-old wife of jailed former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş had previously announced she was willing to be DEM's İstanbul candidate during an interview in late January, but dropped out of the candidate pool a few weeks later. 

"Under normal circumstances, Meral Danış Beştaş would be perceived as a strong candidate, but any name after Başak Demirtaş now looks like a weak candidate in the eyes of the public,” Girasun said, stating the latter prompted "motivation" among Kurdish voters.

​​In other election-related news, Turkey's Workers Party (TİP) announced their candidate for Hatay: Gökhan Zan, a former football player who was one of İYİ Party's candidates for parliament in the province in the May 2023 elections. 

Antakya journalist and Turkey recap contributor Burcu Özkaya Günaydın said that even though TİP took almost nine percent of the votes in Hatay last year, their supporters are not very happy with the party nominating Zan. 

"Even some members of TİP resigned from the party after they nominated Zan," Günaydın said. "Most of their supporters don't want to vote for a name associated with a right-wing party. It is almost a sure thing that they won't create an impact … this is a gift for the AKP candidate."

– Gonca Tokyol