Some 50 million voters will cast their votes in the Turkish presidential and parliamentary snap elections on the 24th June in Turkey. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking a second term following his 2014 win.
The pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) is likely to play a crucial role in this election, despite many of its MPs -including leader Selahattin Demirtaş, party officials and mayors- being imprisoned prison since the collapse of the Kurdish/Turkish ‘peace process’.
“The most pressing issue at the moment is whether the HDP reaches the 10% threshold,” Istanbul-based radio journalist Yavuz Oğhan told SBS Turkish.
“If the HDP doesn’t reach the threshold the People’s Alliance (an alliance of Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party - AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party - MHP) will easily cross the finish line and the AKP will the HDPs 60 seats, which would provide comfortable parliamentary majority,” he said.
Anti - Erdoğan camp to give HDP a hand
At the end of May many polls showed the HDP on the brink of 10%. Oğhan says there are indications that the Social Democrat People’s Republican Party (CHP) supporters may vote for the HDP in the parliamentary elections while they will vote for the CHP’s presidential candidate Muharrem İnce.
CHP spokesperson Bülent Tezcan refused that claim: “The CHP is not a charity organisation. We don’t support anybody else but our party,” he said.
But there other signs that support's Yavuz Oğhan's view.
Sözcü is one of the largest and most influential Turkish newspapers, popular among social democrats and known for its anti Kurd and anti AKP (Justice and Development Party). For the first time in history, Sözcü’s best known columnists, Emin Çölaşan and Yılmaz Özdil, recently wrote positive articles about the HDP and its candidates. Çölaşan highlighted the unfairness of the imprisonment of HDP’s presidential candidate, Selahattin Demirtaş. Özdil went further and said that an HDP candidate in Ankara was the best option for the election.
The articles have been widely interpreted as endorsements for the HDP.
CHP presidential candidate Muharrem İnce visited Selahattin Demirtaş in prison immediately after the announcement of his candidacy. He is also expected to visit Demirtaş’ wife, as his own wife has already done.
“In previous elections the HDP has been criminalised by the government as an instrument of the PKK, the armed Kurdish group. But this time around all presidential candidates, except Erdoğan, are objecting that it is unfair that Demirtaş is in prison and can’t campaign like the other candidates,” says Oğhan.
Australian Turks said “no” to Erdoğan last time
In 2017 President Erdoğan won a constitutional referendum to change the Turkish Constitution from a parliamentary system to a presidential one. But the majority of Australian Turks voted “No”. Out of more than 14,000 votes cast in Australia, 58 % voted ‘No’ and 42% ‘Yes’.
Visiting AKP MP Zekeriya Birkan said they lost the referendum in Australia because they didn’t work hard enough. “We didn’t explain the referendum well enough to Turkish voters in Australia,” he told SBS Turkish.
The June 24 elections will be tight. “I see some people think that 50 or 100 votes from overseas wouldn’t change anything. It is wrong. 50 to 100 votes could deliver 15 or 20 MP’s to a party. I want people to understand this and go to a polling station and vote for us,” says Birkan.
The AKP sent MPs Zekeriya Birkan and İsmail Aydın to Australia to make sure the 2017 result wouldn't repeat in 2018. They spent 10 days in Sydney and Melbourne. Speaking from Turkey before he flew to Australia Birkan told local newspaper Bursa Olay he was expecting five thousand people to attend the AKP’s open air rally in Melbourne. The number was far less at the Broadmeadows rally in Melbourne on Sunday June 3.
The AKP, CHP and HDP have organised election teams in Australia. They have organised campaign activities including fund raising dinners, meetings, information sessions and bus trips to take voters to polling stations at consulates in Melbourne and Sydney. İyi (Good) Party supporters have placed full page ads in local Turkish newspapers.
There are more than 44,000 people in Australia eligible to vote in the Turkish elections. Last year 32% cast votes in the constitutional referendum. More than 16,000 eligible voters cast their vote between 9 - 17 June at the Turkish Consulates in Melbourne and Sydney and the Turkish Embassy in Canberra for the 24 June Election. Votes sent to Turkey and counting will begin end of election day in Turkey.
