The Supreme Election Board (YSK) last week stripped Hatip Dicle, one of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP)-supported independent candidates, of his right to assume his post. A number of other independents plus three Republican People's Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) representatives who are in jail at the moment, were denied release and so were also not able to take the oath yesterday. Who got Turkey in this post-election mess?
Most Justice and Development Party (AKP) politicians and some analysts blame the parties that put these disputed candidates on their electoral lists. The BDP, the CHP and the MHP knew or should have known that having Ergenekon or Kurdish Communities Union (KCK) suspects run for office would create problems. Some critics even think that creating these tensions is a deliberate effort to block Turkey from making progress on finding common ground for a new constitution.
Others put the blame on the YSK, and I tend to agree with them. How is it possible that the same body that decided, before the elections, that Dicle and all the other would-be deputies were eligible to be elected as such, comes to the conclusion afterwards that Dicle is not and did not take into account the possibility that the people's representatives would not be released from prison? This is either incompetence, a major misjudgment or, not to be ruled out, a calculated attempt to put sand in Turkey's political machinery. Whichever, it is more than enough reason to start a full overhaul of this body as soon as possible.
I fully understand why the aggrieved parties are furious. Whether you agree with them or not, once candidates are allowed to run for Parliament and have managed to collect enough votes, it should not be possible for courts to intervene and obstruct the outcome of democratic elections. I disagree with Dicle and some of the KCK suspects on important points and I have made it clear in the past that allowing Ergenekon suspects to use parliamentary immunity to bypass the judicial proceedings against them is not correct. But all of them were elected by popular vote and should be able to take their seat in Parliament.
At the same time, I am deeply convinced that the BDP is making a big mistake by boycotting Parliament. The only way to prevent a repetition of the injustice done to Dicle and the others is to change the laws on which these controversial decisions are based. The only body that can do so is the new Parliament. The BDP has a duty towards the people who voted for them to take part, from the start, in the process of formulating a new constitution and revising outdated laws, like the Counterterrorism Law (TMK), that are still being used against them.
The BDP has to make up its mind. Are they only in politics to express the anger and frustration of many Kurds or did they run for Parliament to try and have a real impact on the shape the new Turkey is taking?
In an interesting study on Kurdish politics called “Activists in Office,” the American political scientist Nicole F. Watts comes to the conclusion that most Kurdish parties and movements over the years have pursued multiple aims that are not necessarily complimentary. Using resources for particular activities may further one set of goals, for instance mobilizing hundreds of thousands of Kurds to assert a collective Kurdish “we.” But these same actions have made forming alliances with the Turkish establishment more difficult. Some of their behavior in the past has been clearly self-defeating.
Today's crisis could be a defining moment for the BDP. Does it prefer to be the voice of anger, positioning itself as an anti-system challenger party? Or are BDP leaders able and willing to overcome their resentment of the present structures and play a constructive role in building new ones in which Kurds get the rights they are entitled to? Time is running out. The answer will determine whether Turkey is entering a phase of positive dynamism or whether it will remain stuck in the divisions of the past.
