President Tayyip Erdoğan made a statement before his departure to New York to participate in United Nations (UN) General Council meetings. He spoke about the decision to re-arrest the former joint leaders of HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi - Peoples' Democratic Party) Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ in the case about the “6-8 September events” where the two were previously discharged.
Referring to Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ, Erdoğan said “If there is a search for murderers in this country, there is no need to look for their addresses. They have managed to infiltrate as far as the parliament. We will follow this business till the end. We cannot let them go.” Erdoğan, as the head of the “one-man” administration, proving that his both the prosecutor and the judge, thereby openly declared a “verdict” about a case still ongoing in the judiciary!
Which court board can now dare to discharge Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ by revoking Erdoğan’s verdict of “We cannot let them go?” In the case one emerges we will also see what they will suffer.
However, while there is such gross intervention in judiciary; the AKP and the government retinue, if asked why Demirtaş and other HDP politicians could not be discharged, they will once again reply, “We don’t have the authority to intervene in the judiciary. It is the decision of independent courts.”
We have previously witnessed other versions of President Erdoğan’s open intervention in the judiciary through the examples of HDP and other detainees too. But once the developments in the recent few days are considered, the words above, going beyond intervention in the judiciary, are those which have the purpose of driving HDP out of the field of legal politics.
Once we remember again the well-known developments of the last three to four weeks, Erdoğan and Presidential alliance’s objective becomes all the more intelligible. And indeed;
The systematic lynching of HDP every day on grounds of the demonstration by families, who claim that “the HDP has kidnapped and taken their children to mountains,” taking place in front of HDP offices in Diyarbakır,
The arrest of the HDP council leader and regional HDP head in relation to the bomb attack in Kulp after the Kulp HDP office was shown as a target and the subsequent appointment of an administrator to the council,
The re-arrest of Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ in a way that is unacceptable to any law and conscience,
The specific announcement that the draft of “Judicial Reform and Strategy Document” will not be made available to HDP while being presented to other opposition parties… are all the plainest indications of the presence of a AKP-MHP operation to drive the HDP out of the field of legal politics.
Yes, with primarily the President himself, the Presidential alliance are doing all at their disposal to drive the HDP out of the field of legal politics.
However, once the characteristics of the period we are undergoing are considered, it is plainly evident that the campaign waged against HDP is in fact one against the ‘National Alliance’ and the unity of the HDP and progressive democratic forces against the “one-man rule,” which rubs shoulders with the National Alliance.
This is because it can be discerned that the Presidential Alliance is deliberating that if the HDP could be isolated and thus rendered powerless in the field of legal politics, then the most dynamic force of the opposition and moreover the most determining force of a possible election would be rendered powerless. And according to this deliberation, the National Alliance and the forces of democracy which in the least conduct themselves parallel to it can no longer have the chance to become an option against the ruling power in the field and in an election. Indeed, once the composition of the opposition is considered, it is a reality for anyone who follows politics to some degree that this deliberation is not one to which the political field is not susceptible.
In present conditions, it will not be possible for an Alliance, which cannot more or less unite the current opposition including also the HDP, to become an option against the forces of the “one-man rule” backed also by the advantages of the state.
Considering what Erdoğan and the spokespeople of the Presidential Alliance openly say, there are two main aims why HDP is set as the target in such open terms:
To safeguard the home front of Turkey’s military operation against “eastern Euphrates” with or without the US. This is the short-term goal. And the middle-term goal of this attempt is to smash the unity of the forces of opposition forming since 16 April referendum in case Erdoğan and the Presidential Alliance have to resort to an “early election” (and although its date is unknown, this is not a small possibility) and in this way, to render it no longer an “electoral option.”
As these goals demonstrate, the struggle today against the lynching campaign against the HDP, is not only the responsibility of HDP but of the entirety of the opposition forces, with primarily the CHP. This is a responsibility which must be recognised by trade unions, labour organisations… by all kinds of democratic organisation and circles defending living in peace, who are in favour of a democratic Turkey.
About the steps to be taken by these forces, the extent to which they will conduct themselves according to the goal of unity (in the case where Erdoğan and his circles’ intention turns into action) will be laid bare by the position taken against the operation against “eastern Euphrates.” For Erdoğan calculates that he will divide the opposition into at least two or even three or four with this attempt!
Whether or not the government will achieve its goals is a matter to be determined by the stance the opposition will take.
İhsan Çaralan
Ceren Sözeri
Yusuf Karadaş
Aras Coşkuntuncel