Former HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş replied to one question each from 34 journalists, columnists and critics, including our Editor-in-Chief Fatih Polat. To the question, “If you were a candidate for Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor, what would be your main slogan and slogans?” Demirtaş replied as follows: “I would write our election slogan on the mirror I would place on all the billboards: ‘Istanbul’s new mayor. Please take a closer look.’”
İrfan Aktan of Gazete Duvar reported in the article titled “Selahattin Demirtaş: We are struggling our way to victory, not begging” that former HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş responded to one question each from 34 journalists, columnists and critics.
Some of the replies that Demirtaş gave to journalists’ questions are as follow:
1- Fatih Polat (Journalist): The story in Dawn that I found most successful in terms of character construction, that influenced me the most and that was the most detached from political references was “New Life” in which you tell the story of the funeral supplies purveyor. In fact, while reading it, the legendary character Zebercet in Yusuf Atılgan’s Motherland Hotel comes to mind. As a literary text, I ask, leaving the fictional component to one side, if there is a counterpart in your life of the funeral supplies purveyor whom you have so successfully portrayed.
There is no direct counterpart of the short story in my life, Fatih. But I have frequently encountered similar situations. Forget correctly analysing the situation they are in and their abilities and constructing a new life, I have witnessed plenty of people who have experienced disappointment in way-out adventures. I tried a bit to narrate an extreme example through fiction.
2- Mehveş Evin (Journalist): What is your take on Ekrem İmamoğlu and the CHP’s Istanbul policies? Does İmamoğlu inspire hope for the democratization of Turkey? Will you make a similar call to the electorate for 23 June as you did on 31 March?
Addressing society, which is tired of polarization, the language of hate and tension, in a more unifying, embracing language and doing this with conviction is important. Society rightly attaches value to this. I also said very frequently when I was on the outside that it is incorrect to attach hope to people. There is a need for principles and wider unities of struggle united around these principles. There is a more pressing requirement for everyone to support collective structures such as the democracy front and thus to struggle as part of such structures. Struggles waged through people will not make an adequate and lasting contribution to the formation of a culture of democracy. This is the way to lend permanence to Mr İmamoğlu’s current position and justified popular support. My party the HDP is in fact maintaining its position regarding the 23 June election. I will have no position that deviates from this. I will certainly follow developments and consult with my party as to what we can do. I have read the book How Did We Get Here from A to Z and it is very successful. Thank you for your effort and labour.
3- Nadire Mater (Journalist): If you were a candidate for Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor in the 23 June election, what would be your main slogan and slogans? What kind of Istanbul would you promise so that this difference/these differences would court the hearts of those who would never dream of voting for you to the extent of inspiring them even momentarily to contemplate Demirtaş while voting?
I would do what is called for to bring direct democracy into being. I would supply free and fast wifi connections in all public spaces in all sub-provinces. I would pave the way for all who wish to do so to participate in online voting using a special password on all decisions taken by the municipal assembly and mayor with apps loaded onto phones. I would roll this out until decision making, suggestion making, criticizing and monitoring processes become accessible in full to all Istanbullers. I would take and implement no decision that had not been subjected to referendum in this way. Everything that is done without constructing true popular democracy is more or less a deception. Without developing the culture of democracy, we can neither ensure the cohabitation of diversity, nor prevent the exploitation of labour and nature, nor halt plunder, corruption and theft. I would write our election slogan on the mirror I would place on all the billboards: ‘Istanbul’s new mayor. Please take a closer look.’” Greetings dear Nadire Mater.
“WE ARE STRUGGLING OUR WAY TO VICTORY, NOT BEGGING”
4- Selin Girit (Journalist): The final hearing of the trial in which you are being prosecuted that is the reason for your continued detention will be held just four or five days before the 23 June elections. Claims have been voiced in certain media outlets that dealings are being conducted between the HDP and AKP over your release. Are such dealings involved? Do you expect to be acquitted on 19 June? How do you see your potential release playing out on HDP voters’ preferences?
Ms Girit, I don’t know how it looks from the outside, but I can’t find words to say to those who still persist in seeing us as a party of cheap, unprincipled dealings despite our waging the stiffest of struggles against fascism and paying the heaviest of penalties in all periods. Had we had the slightest inclination to engage in the kind of dealings you included in your question, I wouldn’t actually have been here for two and half years. I am absolutely not opposed to negotiations being conducted under the aegis of parliament with all parties including the AKP to increase the prospects for democracy and peace and to turn each opportunity into a principled gain, either. The task of political parties, while on the one hand waging unbroken struggle, is on the other to engage in the diplomacy and politics of this resistance. Declaring that which is canonically permissible for everyone to be canonically forbidden for the HDP can never be accepted. Why, when all other parties come together at every opportunity and develop dialogues around shared interests, is this called politics, but when the HDP establishes dialogue with any party, this is called dealings? Indeed, the HDP can also engage in dealings consistent with its own principles and interests, this is its right, too. But the mere suggestion that the HDP will sell out on the will of its voters for my release is distasteful. This claim is so fallacious that they even ignore that I have been handed down four years and eight months in a contrived sentence in another trial. Such approaches are demeaning and humiliating. We are struggling our way to victory, not begging. I tell everyone they should relax and continue to trust us.
(Translated by Tim Drayton)
Aras Coşkuntuncel
