The parliamentary election in Turkey on 7 June was a victory for the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) that passed the 10% election threshold which was imposed after the 1980 coup.
According to preliminary results, the party more than doubled its votes from 2.8 million (6.5%) in the 2011 elections to slightly more than 6 million (13%) in the 2015 elections.
The AKP’s votes decreased from nearly 50% in 2011 to 40.9% in 2015, even though the party still came first. No party has the mandate to form the government alone.
Several factors played a role in this victory. First, the HDP leadership prepared a party programme that is attractive to all masses. The party encompasses a broad mass of Kurds, feminists, LGBT people, Alevis, and all the oppressed.
More importantly, they showed that they are loyal to their programme. For instance, they stuck by their support for the abolishment of the state-run Presidency of Religious Affairs, which imposes Sunni Islam.
The party also openly recognised the Armenian genocide and offered democratic autonomy for Turkish Kurdistan.
It is best to describe the HDP as a left-wing, umbrella party of broad bases. The HDP has become the platform for hope as the AKP quickly moved to implement authoritarian policies after it consolidarted power in 2010/2011 and was sure that the military tutelage was over.
The breaking point for Kurds, however, came with the apathy of the AKP to the Rojava struggle against ISIS and the more importantly AKP’s antipathy towards the PYD (the Democratic Union Party, an affiliate of the PKK).
On the other hand, the election was also a defeat of Erdoğan, who weakened the Parliament after he was elected as President last year. This was also a blow to his hopes of turning Turkey into a presidential system.
The HDP won seats not only from Turkish Kurdistan but also from the West of Turkey as well as industrial areas of Istanbul such as Kocaeli and Bursa. The last two are where the wave of metal workers’ strikes has spread, since last May, through Renault, OYAK, and Ford Otosan factories.
It should be remembered that struggle has a tendency to overflow from the corridors of the Parliament.
The existence of the socialists in the HDP would expand the struggle for substantial democratisation. The struggle now starts!
