HDP: Four million votes 'robbed' with mayor dismissals

Photo: Sertaç Yakar

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The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) has released a report on the replacement of its mayors with ministry-appointed "trustees" in the Kurdish majority eastern and southeastern provinces.

The purge of the HDP mayors began on August 19 last year, when the mayors of Diyarbakır, Mardin and Van were dismissed from their posts on the ground of ongoing "terrorism-related" investigations against them. 

Since then, 47 out of the 65 municipalities won by the party in the 2019 local elections have been taken over by the Ministry of Interior, according to the HDP's report. 

"Coup policies"

"Erdoğan is a putschist. He once again applied the coup policies at this time ... last year," HDP MP Garo Paylan said at a press conference about the report.

To stop the HDP from getting stronger, the government ended the resolution process to the Kurdish question and "burned down cities," Paylan said, referring to the conflict in the Kurdish-majority region following the June 2015 general elections.

"Our elected ones, co-chairs and MPs have been arrested by stripping off their immunity upon orders that came from the palace. A coup was made against the parliament," he added. Several HDP deputies, including former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, are currently imprisoned.

Paylan also said that the opposition did not react to this "coup" as strongly as it did after "the coups in the west."

The co-spokesperson of the Democratic Local Governments Committee, Hediye Karaaslan, said the trustee appointments were the "last nails to the coffee of local democracy and democratic municipalism."

"Millions of lira was offered to our co-mayors by intermediaries and they were told just one thing: 'Resign from your party to move to other parties or stay independent'," she said and added that the mayors were arrested after not accepting these offers.

Mayors of 4.26 million people have changed

According to the report;

• Trustees have been appointed to 47 municipalities
• 18 co-mayors have been remanded in custody
• 6 municipalities have been "usurped" on the ground of statutory decrees
• 76 municipal council members have been dismissed
• 10 council members have been remanded in custody
• 7 general provincial assembly members have been dismissed
• 25 council members were detained
• There are more than 4,26 million voters in the places the mayors of which were dismissed
• The police used tear gas and pressurized water against almost all of the demonstrations against trustee appointments.
• Nearly 1,000 people were detained in August 2019. (HA/VK)