Turkey: Political crisis and democratic movement

First published in French at Contretempes Revue de Critique Communiste. Translation from International Viewpoint. Edited for clarity.

The mass democratic movement in Turkey following the arrest of Ekrem Imamoğlu, mayor of Istanbul and candidate of the centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), is a major social and political event on the doorstep of the European Union. Rallies and demonstrations are taking place throughout the country, with very large turnouts, particularly in Saraçhane Square in Istanbul in front of the town hall.

The hardening of the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regime, which crossed an unprecedented red line with this arrest, coincides with the information from recent months on a peace process initiated with the Kurdish national movement of Turkey, in particular the central political-military organization within this movement: the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It is a question of understanding this context, with two seemingly contradictory dynamics, to grasp the potentials and pitfalls this ongoing movement faces, the consequences of which would be very risky to predict at the time of writing.

From one election to another

It is important to remember one fundamental fact: elections in Turkey have so far been competitive and attract very strong civic participation from a highly politicized society. I have previously referred to a “minimal but solid democratic culture” among the Turkish population of Turkey. It is true that this has not prevented the majority of the population from remaining generally passive about the deeply unequal conditions of elections, not only in socio-economic terms, as in any liberal democracy, but, above all, in terms of direct and indirect repression against opposition forces, especially if it affects the Kurdish minority, which experiences colonial oppression.

This population has thus accepted — without necessarily approving, but at least acquiescing to — that the results of the past two local elections in Kurdish localities have been, for the most part, annulled and that, in a purely colonial logic, elected mayors have been imprisoned and replaced by administrators appointed by the government. This culture, however, also leads to granting crucial importance to competitive elections as a “justice of the peace” to determine the direction of the state, with many heavily investing in these issues. Proof of this is that the participation rate in an election has never fallen below 76% (a figure not subject to fraud, as voter mobilization has been systematically observed) and has been regularly above 85% for 45 years.

After the resounding failure of the 2023 general elections, which saw the re-election of Erdoğan and a weakened but renewed majority, the CHP decided to hold a congress, with Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu at its head who, faithful to the tradition of his party’s leaders not to accept any failure, was preparing to be re-elected party president. However, the shock of the failure, and the calamitous management of the period between the general elections and the congress1 caused him to lose large part of his political credibility. This resulted in an unprecedented electroshock within the CHP, with the formation of an opposition of “renovators” grouped around the mayor of Istanbul elected in 2019, Imamoğlu, and his ally, parliamentary group chairperson Özgür Ozel.

In November 2023, for the first time in a century of the party’s existence, an incumbent party president was defeated at a congress and the CHP was taken over by the duo of Özel, as president, and Imamoğlu, the main public figure. What changes has this new leadership of “renovators”, coming nonetheless from the apparatus, implemented? Essentially two. On the one hand, greater professionalism in the leadership of the party, and the shaking up of a heavy apparatus with 1.5 million members. On the other, a more explicit opening towards the Kurds of Turkey. The new leadership refuses to ostracize the DEM (People’s Equality and Democracy Party, born from the Kurdish national movement and democrats), and Imamoğlu considered, for example, during a public debate that it would be “madness” to consider a party that received 5 million votes as “terrorist”.2

It was with this renewed team that the CHP approached the 2024 local elections, which Erdoğan had pledged to win on the very evening of his re-election, with the particular aim of recapture Istanbul. Opposition analysts did not approach this election with much hope, the main focus being on preserving the gains of 2019. The surprise was the opposite of that of 2023: a huge snub for the regime and a resounding success for the CHP, symbolically taking the lead in the poll.

For his part, Imamoğlu easily outstripped his AKP opponent and secured a large majority in the municipal council (which he had not previously enjoyed). The momentum of the CHP apparatus happen to combine with the end of the regime’s countercyclical measures in favour of a classic austerity policy and, to a certain extent, the exposure of the regime’s hypocrisy on the Palestinian question, with business circles close to the government trading with Israel (and even its army).

The situation thus seems to have become clearer over the past year: the CHP is the country’s main political force and, in Imamoğlu, it has a popular candidate capable of defeating Erdoğan. This poses an immense danger for a regime whose leaders derive considerable personal benefits from their hold on political power.

A peace process?

It is in this context that the “peace process” comes into play. It has taken an unexpected form: Devlet Bahçeli, the old leader of the ultranationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) which is allied with Erdoğan, put forward the proposal for a process leading to the disarmament and dissolution of the PKK, in exchange for an amnesty including for the historic PKK leader, founder and emblematic figure, Abdullah Öcalan, detained on the island prison of Imrali for 26 years.

A process of exchanges and negotiations began, including meetings between government officials and a delegation of DEM MPs acting as intermediaries with Imrali and Mount Qandil in Iraqi Kurdistan, where the PKK leadership is located. This culminated in Öcalan’s “historic” February 27 declaration, calling for the PKK to lay down its arms and dissolve.

Three weeks later, the Erdoğan regime decided to cross a line that had never been crossed before: preventing an opponent from running in the presidential election. This first resulted in the cancellation of Imamoğlu’s degree, decades after he had received it, as, according to the Turkish constitution, a university degree is a prerequisite for running in the presidential election.

This decision was immediately followed by his arrest, along with that of a large part of his general staff, for corruption and support for terrorism (classic regime accusations against its adversaries). The timing of this operation was not due to chance: scalded by the catastrophic sequence of presidential candidate selection during the 2023 election, the CHP held its primary on March 23 to designate its candidate for the next election, with the only candidate being Imamoğlu.

How can we understand the concomitance between this “peace process” and this authoritarian offensive targeting a Turkish centre-left party? It is possible to make a hypothesis and an observation about the reality of this “peace process”.

The hypothesis is that, faced with the greater than ever risk of losing power to the CHP, the regime decided to criminalize it, counting on divisions that would arise within it. However, since the operation is on such a large scale (it concerns the party ruling the largest cities in the country), it could involve separately resolving the other major issue — the “Kurdish question” — in the expectation that the Kurdish national movement would remain neutral in the face of the criminalization of the CHP and prioritize the “peace process”. However, assuming this is the motivation behind the large-scale manoeuvre initiated by the regime, it has only encountered major obstacles, the first being the very situation of the “peace process”.

Indeed, Öcalan’s spectacular statement was widely commented on in the international media, but which omitted a detail: after reading Öcalan’s text at a media conference, the delegation of DEM MPs added verbally: “A. Abdullah Öcalan then told us: ‘Without a doubt, the disarmament and self-dissolution of the PKK will require in practice the recognition of civil politics and a legal dimension’.” This “footnote,” considered as part of Öcalan’s statement by the entire Kurdish national movement, obviously changes the situation since it is no longer a question of unilateral self-dissolution but of an option conditioned by counterparts, namely tangible democratic guarantees.

But this is where the problem lies: there has been absolutely no positive political gesture towards the Kurds since the beginning of this “process”. Not a single Kurdish locality placed under guardianship has had its legitimate mayor reinstated, and no mayor imprisoned during the past two mandates and no political leader of the DEM (and its predecessor the Peoples’ Democratic Party, HDP) has been released. When Imamoğlu was arrested, there was certainly a “peace process” underway, but without the slightest concrete progress on the part of the Turkish government.

That makes Devlet’s March 21 statement all the more astonishing, in which the ultranationalist leader proposed that a PKK congress to self-dissolve be held on May 5, in the territory of the Turkish state, in Malazgirt, with the logistical assistance of the local DEM mayor. It is difficult to imagine the PKK General Staff coming from Mount Qandil in a little over a month without the slightest guarantee of any kind (neither political nor otherwise) and laying down their arms to leave with their hands in their pockets. Especially since the other part of Bahçeli’s statement was a very violent attack against the CHP (of which the MHP was an ally 10 years ago, before allying with the AKP), criminalizing the Turkish centre-left party with formulations that hardly allow the possibility of a democratic evolution to transpire.

Kurdish leaders (whether civilian politicians with the DEM, the PKK’s political-military apparatus, or others) are aware that this lack of democratization makes any peace process more than precarious. They cannot fail to remember that the previous peace process in 2015 was suddenly thrown in the dustbin by Erdoğan, who even denied its existence afterwards. The legitimate mistrust of the DEM leaders was summed up by its co-president, Tülay Hatimogullari: “Who says that tomorrow we will not be prosecuted because of our meetings with Öcalan as part of the delegation for the peace process?”

Erdoğan’s failure

Consequently, since the beginning of this crisis, DEM has maintained a principled position of defending the peace process and democratic rights as a whole, far from the stereotypical and baseless accusations made by nationalist opposition circles that it is giving Erdoğan a free hand in exchange for peace. DEM’s leadership supported Imamoğlu during the cancellation of his diploma and subsequent arrest, and also met with CHP leaders at Istanbul City Hall, which has become a rallying point for the opposition. The party’s Istanbul branch called for people to go to Saraçhane Square, where Istanbul City Hall is located and where huge rallies have been taking place since Imamoğlu ’s arrest.

Even more symbolic were the Newroz festivities, a holiday traditionally celebrated by the Kurds and an annual gathering of the Kurdish national movement for mass meetings. The Newroz celebration in Amed /Diyarbakir is considered a very important political moment. However, contrary to expectations, there was no new message from Öcalan read from the podium, as the DEM delegation was prevented from meeting him, which is a definite setback for the peace process.

DEM co-chair Tuncer Bakırhan’s speech was highly anticipated. He targeted the regime by declaring: “What is being done to the opposition is contrary to the spirit of [Öcalan’s] February 27 statement and is unacceptable,” after explicitly denouncing Imamoğlu’s imprisonment. All this is in line with DEM’s position from the start, but it is likely that the regime was hoping for a more “neutral” statement.

The regime’s divisive manoeuvre seems to have already failed, largely due to the lucidity of the DEM leaders. It should be noted, however, that the CHP leaders also sought to rise to the occasion by not leaving the hand extended by the DEM leaders hanging in the air. Özel also sent a statement for Newroz (a first for a CHP chairman): “These lands are ancient lands where different cultures, languages and beliefs live together in brotherhood, where solidarity and hope flourish. No tyrant, no Dehak3 will be able to break our brotherhood!” 

He concluded his text with the traditional Kurdish slogan: “Newroz piroz be!”

He later greeted a large number of political prisoners, including former HDP leaders. Similarly, in a statement written in detention and published on social media, Imamoğlu said: “As long as the Kurds say there is a problem, then there is a Kurdish problem.”

Mobilized youth and CHP

Since the beginning of the movement, the CHP has also sought to establish a link with mobilized society, unlike what happened during the last democratic mass movement that Turkey experienced in 2013 (the so-called Gezi movement). In addition to an open discourse towards the Kurds, its leadership formally recognized the importance of students in this mobilization by offering them a platform in Saraçhane Square.

Indeed, student youth constitute the vanguard of the movement. This is recognized by all actors, whether the CHP or the personalities, artists, athletes and media celebrities who all refer to the importance of the country’s youth in their declarations of indirect or explicit support for the movement. It is also “recognized” by the regime, with the repression primarily targeting them. For example, at the time of writing, Selinay Uzuntel, a student leader who spoke in Saraçhane Square on behalf of the struggling students (and also a member of the Labour Party (EMEP), a Marxist-Leninist with Hoxhaist tendencies) has been arrested along with other student leaders.

There are 7 million students in Turkey, representing 8.2% of the population (compared to 4.4% in France). These young people have only known the AKP in power, in its corrupt and nepotistic version. They study but cannot hope to find a career path in most cases. Faced with arbitrary power structures, the vast majority would like to live abroad if they could. They witness daily the immense gap between the virtues advocated by the regime and the ostentatious and arrogant cynicism of those who benefit from it.

Some remember the older brothers and sisters who “made Gezi,” despite having to confront arbitrary and intrusive authorities. Twelve years ago, a young comrade told me during the Gezi movement: “Being young in Turkey means being yelled at by Erdoğan on television every morning and night." This striking phrase is more true today, even as the regime loses more legitimacy each day.

This vanguard role of student mobilization goes hand-in-hand with a desire for autonomy. Thus, for the first time in Istanbul, on March 24, there was a separate rally called by struggling students in Besiktas, not Saraçhane. Earlier in the day, “academic boycotts” (the equivalent of “student strikes”) were launched at many universities.

Returning to the CHP, it successfully conducted its primary, but opened it up to all citizens who were able to participate in “solidarity” votes. The CHP leadership announced the colossal figure of 15 million people who participated in the polls (the vote was not electronic) for a primary that became a plebiscite. It is impossible to confirm this figure, as no media outlet with sufficient resources was authorized by the regime to cover this event.

Nevertheless, local media coverage indicates participation was strong. While the weakness of the labour movement, difficult living standards, and obstacles to organization make a huge strike seem out of reach, the CHP has called for a boycott of certain economic groups and media outlets. Since the beginning of the movement, the regime has spent 11% of its foreign currency reserves ($20 billion) to prevent a collapse of the Turkish lira, while the Istanbul stock market has recovered after an initial collapse.

Saraçhane rallies are colossal, but will they be able to maintain this pace if there is no progress? Neighbourhood assemblies have already been set up in Istanbul, if only because Saraçhane is far for millions of residents of this vast metropolis. It is impossible to predict the future of the current movement, but it is possible to address some of the contradictions within it.

Kemalism versus Kemalism?

From this polyphony proclaiming its aspiration for the unity of the people beyond its traditional divisions and its relations of oppression, however, rises a dissonance which does not cover the other sounds but cannot be ignored either: that of Turkish supremacism. Although there are other ultranationalist soloists in opposition to Erdoğan (the leaders of the Iyi, the “Good Party”, or the neo-fascists of the Victory Party, ZP), the most strident sound is produced by the CHP mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavaş.

A former ultranationalist leader who joined the CHP, he won the Ankara mayoralty in 2019, at the same time as Imamoğlu won in Istanbul. He then confirmed his victory by crushing his AKP opponent in 2024. During his speech in Saraçhane, he denounced a “double standard” against the demonstrators in Istanbul while a “party in the East of the country” organizes rallies (Newroz) in which a “rag” (Kurdish/PKK flags) are waved and where cotton candy is offered to young people (in reference to a widely circulated video of a police officer distributing candy to children in a Kurdish locality on the occasion of Newroz) while “here” (in Istanbul or Ankara, but the subtext being “Turks”) “young people are being beaten up.”

This crude discourse equates a micro-event with decades of colonial oppression and reverses historical roles. Insensitive to any prospect of peace, it wants to maintain the supremacist status quo, that is, democracy only for Turks, and therefore ultimately no democracy for anyone. This discourse is not that of the movement’s leadership, especially since Yavaş, as a defector from another party, has never had powerful networks in the CHP (which was capable of having this kind of discourse in its worst right-wing periods), but it exists.

Behind Yavas stands the nationalist opposition milieu of the small parties mentioned above, but also some other mayors, such as Tanju Özcan in Bolu and Burcu Köksal in Afyonkarahisar, as well as other CHP cadres. They not only represent a risk of deviation for the movement, they weaken it. Because of Yavaş’s speech, Özel was booed during her intervention at Newroz in Istanbul. As a shrewd politician, Erdoğan did not fail to denounce Yavaş’s remarks to present the current movement as that of the enemies of peace and supporters of the status quo.4

Any observer of the current movement will notice the portraits of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk accompanied by Turkish flags that abound at rallies and demonstrations. The same was true in 2013 for the Gezi movement. Even among the youth, the mobilization is justified by some students and by a large number of those who support them by mobilizing the figure of Atatürk, with many extracts from his “Speech to Youth”, or from his “Great Speech” entrusting the Republic to the youth, or simply raising his slogan “sovereignty belongs without condition or restriction to the nation” (as opposed to a single individual, Erdoğan).

The use of the tutelary figure of the founder of the Republic of Turkey legitimises an oppositional discourse, situating it in a patriotic continuity while mobilising it for something else. What is retained from the argument is what can be linked to a collective sovereignty, on the one hand, and, on the other, to the historical mission of Turkish youth, thus validating the discourse carried today concretely by this youth. Just as during the Gezi movement, but even more explicitly since it is a question of opposing an operation explicitly calling into question an electoral process (whose importance in Turkey was previously mentioned), Atatürk is mobilised for a democratic aspiration.5

This is, at bottom, a form of performative discourse in relation to the past: if Atatürk entrusts the Republic to the youth, it is because this Republic and the gesture of the war of liberation carry within them our democratic aspiration. Özel does not proceed any differently when he proclaims: “These lands are ancient lands where different cultures, languages and beliefs live together in brotherhood”, while these lands experienced the Armenian genocide and the wealth tax law6, even before the colonial oppression of the Kurds. But, since the objective now stated is an inclusive republic, it is appropriate to reinvent a past that corresponds to it and a fidelity to Kemalism that validates the political aspirations of the day.

In the face of this, Yavaş lies about today’s social relations by presenting the Kurds as privileged compared to the Turks oppressed in their own country. But he is faithful to the practical content of genuine Kemalism, the product of a war of national liberation that was heroic while refusing to recognize Turkey’s national plurality, forgetting the promises made in this regard, repressing the Kurdish revolts and quickly putting an end to any form of controlled political pluralism.

There is, however, little doubt that for the radical left organisations involved in the mobilisation — and some of them are playing a role of catalyst among the youth, such as the Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP), which has four members of parliament, one of whom is in prison —that the priority is not to give a history lesson but to push the movement forward in concrete terms, since “every step forward in the real movement is worth more than a dozen programmes”, as Karl Marx said, or a dozen history lessons.

The function of the lie of the mass democratic movement is to pave the way for confronting historical truth in order to deepen democracy and, as a class struggle strategy, remove divisive weapons from the hands of the bourgeoisie. But we are still far from that. Today, every step taken by a student demonstrating for respect for democracy in the conservative stronghold of Konya is more precious than these considerations. Our support must not fail them.

• 1

  For example, he declared that he had concluded a secret agreement with the ultranationalist Ümit Özdag of the Victory Party (ZP), whose candidate had finished third in the first round with 5%, which, going beyond their official agreement, made huge concessions to this party. An agreement was concluded without the knowledge of his own staff, even though the ZP is deeply hostile to the Kurds, who had overwhelmingly voted for Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu. The latter achieved the feat of having reaped both dishonour and defeat.

• 2

  There had been timid advances in this direction by Kemal Kiliçdaroglu before he decided to betray the Kurds between the two rounds. It must be remembered that the CHP has come a long way in this area since, under the sinister leadership of Deniz Baykal between 1995 and 2010, its discourse was scarcely different from that of the ultranationalists of the MHP.

• 3

  Evil tyrant in Kurdish mythology

• 4

  He also accused the protesters of ransacking a mosque and drinking alcohol there, repeating a classic slander propagated by the regime since 2013.

• 5

  In a way, there is a similarity with the students of the 1960s who began their political journey with Kemalism, insisting on the deepening of independence, then dug the furrow of anti-imperialism and sailed towards the shores of Marxism (or rather of various Marxist currents).

• 6

  Discriminatory provision of 1942 against non-Muslims, establishing a de facto wealth tax at exorbitant rates for these categories in order to ruin the Armenians and constitute a Turkish and Muslim bourgeoisie in their place.