The Kurds are resolving the Turkish elections

Written by Nasser Kandil,

In simplifying the regional scene and what is related to Syria particularly, it can be said easily that the remaining of the obstinacy of Saudi Arabia and Turkey is the complexity of the stage, because each one of them is related to the other, what Turkey will witness of elections on the next Sunday is crucial and exceptional, so what will happen to the bilateral of Erdogan and Oglu will decide whether their policies will rule Turkey or not. The winning of majority means the continuation of the rule by the bilateral and the continuation of the Saudi Turkish alliance in playing a crucial role in the regional policies and a different level of discussion about the Saudi Turkish options. In contrast, the failure of the bilateral of Erdogan and Oglu in winning the majority and the forming of a coalition government will mean neutralizing Syria from the Turkish foreign politics due of its priority at the parties which will form the government. The Justice and the Development Party leads the war on Syria, and the Party of the Republican people which leads the opposition is supporting Syria and its president publicly, it calls to stop the policies of hostility which Erdogan and Oglu have followed, while the Peoples’ Democratic Party sticks to stop the support which the Turkish government presents to the terrorists factions under the plea that it is the Syrian opposition. Furthermore from its special position towards the Kurdish issue it supports the Russian role in Syria through a political understanding for a solution in which participate the Kurds of Syria with the Syrian country and the national opposition that have participated in Moscow dialogues, which means that the policy of the government of contradictions will surely become zero towards the Syrian issue.

Concentrating on the polls of  popularity of the Justice and Development Party, they show the invaluable indicators in assessing the future of the elections’ results, where neither the additive 4% which some have expected for the Party of Erdogan and Oglu will change his gaining the majority or not , nor the losing of the 1 and 2% which some have expected will resolve the matter, everything depends practically on the success or the failure of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party of Kurdish and Leftist origins in surpassing the 10% by  the Turkish votes, and thus entering to the parliament whether the Justice and Development Party has achieved some progress or decline, because according to the Turkish elections’ law which depends on the competitive lists on the basis of the proportional representation, it cannot for any party or a list to be represented in the parliament without gaining 10% of the votes at least in order to restrict the parliamentary representation with the major alliances and parties, and according to the same law, the parliamentary seats in the districts for which the representatives of the lists and the parties stand for and fail in surpassing the 10 % are given for whom got the second position in the districts, this means practically that when the Peoples’ Democratic Party gains 10% and above as has happened in the elections of the last June, then it will gain the seats which represent the districts of the East and the West of Turkey where its candidates are the winners. Therefore it will gain between 55 and 65 seats according to the ratio which it obtained. While in case the Peoples’ Democratic Party has failed in surpassing the 10% then it will lose the opportunity of gaining any parliamentary seat, and thus the seats of the districts will be according to the one which got the second position in the hierarchy of votes in the district, which is surely according to the current situation is for the list of Justice and Development Party, where the two other parties the Republican People’s Party and the Nationalist Movement Party do not proceed through two prominent candidates and do not have votes that are depended on in the districts, which means that the case is summarized in the fate of 55 and 65 seats either all of them are in favor of the Peoples’ Democratic Party as has happened in June’s elections or all of them are in favor of the Justice and Development Party as always happen especially in 2011 when the Peoples’ Democratic Party has won only 7% and has failed to enter the parliament.

The fate of the voting of the Peoples’ Democratic Party will be determined by its main components the Kurds in the Turkish East, and the Leftist in the Turkish West of the Alwai sect, and according to the approach speech of the most prominent parties of the opposition the Republican People’s Party kemal kilicdaroglu who is secular, socialist, and whose origin is driven from Alawi sect, it can be noticed a nervous Alwai Leftist mood towards the Syria issue and against the policies of the Justice and the Development Party, especially with the emergence of the terrorism as a imminent threat against Turkey and the worsening issue of the Syrian refugees and its pressure consequences on the Turkish economy, it can be said that there will be a severe sectarian division that will dominate on the electoral programs and their voting function. What can be witnessed in the coming elections of tension, will raise the rate of participation and will grant each party a high ratio of voters, so its political future will be depended on the ratio of the background from which the demographic composition of the Turkish voters is stemmed and not from the class or the social composition. Thus the total of what the two opposition parties; the Peoples’ Democratic Party, the Republican People’s Party have obtained  in the Alawi sect is approximately 80% of its voters, where the Peoples’ Democratic Party will obtain a parallel rate of support among the Kurds, while the voters of the Sunni community  are distributed in a ratio that may reach to 70% in favor of the Justice and Development Party, thus the Democratic Peoples’ Party and the Republican People’s Party will obtain the lowest proportion of the vote in the Sunni community, and while the Republican People’s Party is protected with enough Alawi basis to reserve an advanced place, the Nationalist Movement Party will lose a lot of the progress opportunities, but it will remain the second in the Sunni sect, which means without the danger of going outside the ring of competition, because the Nationalist Rightist has an importance among the classes which grant it above 10% of the total of voters whatever its conditions become worse.

The Turkish population is distributed on the ethnic, national, and religious assets according to conflicting statistics in accuracy and results between a Kurdish component  that represents between 20 to 25% of the population, Alawi and Shiite component that represents between 15 and 20% , and Sunni component that represents between 55 and 65 % of population, while the population in Turkey ranges between 80 and 100 million people, and according to any equal participated ratio between the components in the elections and the gaining of the Democratic Peoples’ Party the ratio of 25% from the Alawi and 50% from Kurds, the party will gain between 12 and 20% of the voters at the level of Turkey and will surpass the 10% of voting, so the dream of the bilateral Erdogan and Oglu will fall.

The elections which started outside Turkey presented an example that can built upon it in understanding the movement and the trends of the Turkish voters, although that there was not any sign of the results of the nature of voting because the dominant ratio of the Turkish immigrants which is represented by the ratios of the participation in the voting is in favor of the Kurds, especially in the country which has the largest Kurdish community outside the Middle East which is Germany,  so when we talk about the increase of the participation of the Turkish immigrants of 43% and their surpassing the two millions and a quarter million voters who participated comparing to only one million and a half in the elections of June who constitute 7% of the total registered voters, so this can be applied practically. And when the official statistics show that the voters in Germany alone has recorded an increase of one hundred thousand voters comparing with the elections of the last June, this means that the Kurdish mobilization is at its peak in participation, and it is normal to expect that this is in order to protect the presence of the Democratic Peoples’ Party in the parliament, and to immunize the necessary ratio of 10%. So if all the Turkish national sectarian ethnic components  have recorded a similar mobilization as the Kurdish situation indicated, this is impossible because the peak of the expected increase in all the components will not exceed the 20%. But the worst expectations is the repetition of the result of the previous elections with minor modifications that will be mostly at the expense of the Nationalist Movement Party, and the ratio of its representation, but the outcome remains the failure of the Justice and the Development Party in winning the majority, this if we did not mention that the Democratic Peoples’ Party will achieve this time some kind of Tsunami by approaching the ratio of 20%.