90 arrested for protests in Türkiye over the "theft" of a mayor's office in favor of Erdogan

Lara Villalón Istanbul

Istanbul

Updated Wednesday, April 3, 2024-1:00 p.m.

• Türkiye A political tsunami hits Türkiye: keys to the victory of the opposition to Erdogan in the local elections

Celebrations over the opposition's victory in local elections in Turkey have been short-lived after authorities denied the mayoralty to a pro-Kurdish party and awarded it to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's candidate. The electoral authority snatched the mandate from the candidate of the left-wing pro-Kurdish DEM party in the province of Van, Abdullah Zeydan, who obtained 55.5% of the votes, 28 points more than the candidate of the ruling party, the Islamist AKP.

The pro-Kurdish party denounced the "theft" of the decision by the authorities, who removed Zeydan, stating that he is disqualified for having served a sentence for a terrorism case. "Our party achieved a historic victory in the local elections on March 31, 2024 in Van. The people of Van entrusted the fourteen municipalities, including the metropolitan city, to the DEM party," the party said in a statement. "Van's electorate decisively expressed its will at the polls, a forceful response to the trustee regime," he added, alluding to previous government interventions in mayoralties in the region.

After the announcement, party supporters marched through the center of Van to protest against the measure. The demonstrations spread to several provinces in the region, becoming the largest protests in recent years, as confirmed by several witnesses to EL MUNDO. "

It has been years since I have seen so many people in the streets protesting

. People voted for DEM in all the districts, we are tired of them intervening again and again in our vote," Sahin, a young man who participated in the elections, explains to EL MUNDO. protests in Diyarbakir, Turkey's most populous Kurdish city. "I think the Government did not expect this response, we have shown our anger in the streets," he adds.

In the city of Van, protesters threw Molotov cocktails at the police and burned containers and public furniture. Police quelled the protests with water cannons and tear gas. In the neighboring province of Hakkari there were serious moments of tension, with armed men attempting to attack protesters. At least 89 people were detained in protests across the country, according to Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya. The figure was also confirmed by party sources to this newspaper. The governorate of Van has banned any type of demonstration or political event for two weeks and has also restricted entry and exit from the province.

The DEM party has decided to go to court

so that Zeydan can regain his mayoralty. Van's candidate was convicted in 2017 of making "terrorist propaganda" and "collaborating with a terrorist organization" for statements that were interpreted as an apology for the PKK guerrilla, considered a terrorist organization in Turkey and the EU. In 2022 he was released from prison and regained all of his civic rights, so his candidacy for mayor was accepted by the electoral authority, according to data from his party. DEM argues that two days before the elections, the Prosecutor's Office reopened his case, which would lead to his disqualification, a decision that the party's lawyers will take to court.

The DEM party won in the capitals of ten provinces of the country, two more than in the 2019 local elections. In the last five years the Government intervened in 59 of the 65 DEM mayors, arresting their mayors and replacing them with trustees close to Ankara . The authorities claimed that the DEM mayors had links to the Kurdish PKK guerrilla. This judicial persecution extends from the bases to the leadership of the party. According to data from the DEM Legal and Human Rights Commission, 22,000 supporters of the party have been arrested since 2015 and more than 4,000 remain in prison, including ten former deputies who formed the leadership of the party. In the last year the Prosecutor's Office has tried to close the party, which has changed its name up to two times in order to continue being present in Parliament and in the municipalities.