Opposition disperses and Erdogan retreats: Who are the Kurds with

In the recent period, Turkey has been witnessing convulsions and animosities among the main parties regarding the policy of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The opposition parties have not yet reached a real level of representation so that to be able to contain the internal situation and the acceleration of the economic decline and the deterioration of the living situation, especially after the deterioration of the Turkish lira, in addition to the Kurdish question and the discussions that are taking place about holding early elections.

The observer of the Turkish political scene can see more fluctuations that will negatively reflect on the internal affairs due to the insistence of the AKP on its policies that trouble the community, such as intervening and occupying neighboring countries and monopolizing the economy, which led to the economy, especially the currency to disarray and the loss of much of their value, and its involvement in corruption cases, which caused a major financial and economic crisis that expanded to include the sectors of electricity, gasoline, water and all public sector services after successive increases in these services to reach a high rate ranging from 100 to 120%.

The leader of the Democratic and Progress Party (DEVA), Ali Babacan, who was Minister of Economy in successive Erdogan governments until 2016, stressed the decline of the central bank’s reserves to minus 60 billion dollars, with strong prospects for the bankruptcy of the treasury in the near future.

Following the alleged coup attempt in 2016, the AKP managed to silence and suppress the opposition in various sectors from civil society institutions to parliamentarians, and controlled about 95% of the private media and the entire state media.

All these facts led the AKP to lose large segments of social bases that support it, but the opposition parties’ lack of a reform program within a unified bloc, increases Erdogan’s continuity in his repression and brutality against the Kurdish and Turkish society, despite the assurances made by some party leaders, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), and DEVA, on the need for early elections to remove Erdogan and his party from power.

The opposing forces are still dispersed and unable to exploit the crises created by the AKP and the extremist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and crystallize a reform vision that includes the adoption of the Kurdish issue and how to solve it, in addition to a state of disparity and difference among the opposition parties regarding Erdogan’s foreign policy, between rejection and acceptance, the occupation of Syria and Libya in particular. This greatly affects the lack of a clear vision of the AKP.

Faced with this reality, the Turkish situation is heading towards a dark tunnel in light of a state of anticipation for what Turkey will be like after the elections scheduled for June 2023, while speculation appears that early elections will be held before the end of this year, if Erdogan is convinced that he will not be able to win the upcoming elections, in addition to constitutional considerations that include preventing the president from running for a third term, unless early elections are held before the legally set date according to the Turkish constitution.

According to recent official opinion polls, Erdogan will not win the upcoming elections, as his support’s rate reached about 40%, 33% of the AKP and 7% of the MHP.

As for the opposition coalition parties, opinion polls expected that together they would get 44-46% (CHP 25%, The Good Party (iyi) 15%, The Future Party-GP 2%, DEVA 4%, The Happiness Party 1%, The Democratic Party-DP 1%), compared to 12% for the HDP, which supported opposition candidates in many cities, including Istanbul, Antalya and Mersin, during the March 2019 elections.

Based on these figures and the voting rates for each party, the HDP is again at the forefront of the Turkish political scene, as it has the keys to the equation, and to changing the course of the election results if they are held.

After the municipal elections in 2019, the opposition parties realized the importance of the Kurdish voter and the extent of the need for the HDP to win any upcoming electoral battle. This is accompanied with the conviction of many AKP members regarding the importance of grooming the HDP, but as a result of the political structure of the ruling coalition that consists of racists and nationalists, it is unlikely that Erdogan will take such a step. If this occurs, there issues that Erdogan has to solve them and change his policies towards the Kurds, stop the campaigns against the HDP, return the municipalities he took control to the HDP and release all Kurdish politicians and activists. Such a step needs an approval from the nationalists and Ergenekon.