Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Turkey this May 14. The main contenders are the People’s Alliance headed by current President Erdogan’s AKP, the Nation Alliance headed by the traditional nationalist CHP party and the Labor and Freedom Alliance headed by the former Kurdish nationalist HDP, now Green Left Party, and the socialist Workers’ Party of Turkey (TIP). We interviewed Tilbe Akan, member of the TIP and the ISL in Turkey.
What is the Labor and Freedom Alliance? How are you taking up this election?
Elections in Turkey are very important. The rate of participation has surpassed 90% in general, in the last few years. Since the participation is so high, the left has to care about elections.
The Labor and Freedom Alliance we formed consists of six socialist parties and the YSP. The two main parties in the alliance are TIP and YSP. The alliance is based on the solidarity between Kurdish people and the socialists and has a working class policy, less working hours, the right to unionize, better wages and living conditions, measures against inflation, for women and LGBT rights. Basically, freedom, justice and equality are the three main words describing this alliance.
In what social and political context does this election take place?
These elections take place with the country in a very bad situation because of the economic crisis that has been hitting Turkey. The official inflation rate is 80%, but it’s actually more than 180%. The crisis has a psychological effect as well because surviving is getting harder and harder. The earthquake also produced a very depressive reaction from the people because it was very destructive. Even the manipulated official numbers are more than 50,000 deaths. But the government basically doesn’t care about the earthquake, because research shows that the effect on the elections will not be as high as previously thought, 1%, 2% at most, Mainly because AKP supporters don’t hold them accountable, they believe the earthquake came from God, that it was a natural disaster.
The highly oppressive nature of this government is another factor of the situation, and has intensified since the campaign began, especially against the Kurdish movement. The HDP changed its name to Green Left Party (YSP). There was a court case against the HDP and there was a risk of them not being able to run in the elections. So they changed the name and registered a new party and managed to enter the elections. Since the beginning of the campaign, the government is attacking them everywhere, especially in the Kurdish areas, the journalists, the candidates, every YSP event.
Politically there is a very polarized environment because the main opposition’s candidate has a real chance of winning and there are massive expectations in ending Erdogan’s regime after nine years.
Because of this, there’s an intense attack against the TIP from the CHP for “splitting the vote.” It’s a very common reaction from the main opposition in every election. In the last elections they were saying exactly the same about the HDP. And now that the TIP has taken off, they make propaganda against us saying that Erdogan will win if people vote for us and that we cannot pass the limit, which is 7%. In Turkey there’s a 7% threshold to be elected. But that’s wrong because we are a part of the Labor and Freedom alliance which is already comfortably above the threshold.
What does an Erdogan reelection or an opposition win mean for workers, women, the oppressed mean?
An Erdogan win would be horrible for everyone, because it would deepen the economic crisis and workers are already suffering. For women also, this government already left the Istanbul conviction. It attacks women and LGBT rights constantly. In Erdogan’s alliance, there are very far right forces, in the sense of being true Islamists. One of its members is Huda Par, which is a strange one, actually, because they are Kurdish nationalists, but they also support Sharia islamic law, so they are now together with the AKP.
Of course, the oppression against the Kurdish movement, the leftist and everyone would intensify. The political attacks against the opposition parties, especially TIP and HDP would also increase. Erdogan is already very powerful and very oppressive, but winning this election would give him more power. He is an political Islamist ruler and his strength is based on polarizing the people between Turkish and Kurdish, against refugees and LGBT people, between women and men, Alevi and Sunni. Basically, he uses every kind of possible identity difference for the sake of his power. It is suffocating, many people are planning to leave the country if he wins.
What political space and perspective does the left have?
There is not a huge political space because of the strong oppression and polarization. On the other hand, there’s a highly motivated social base that supports the TIP and the YSP for the sake of getting rid of Erdogan. The HDP had already elected 78 candidates to parliament in the previous elections, and the expectation is achieving similar results, perhaps higher with the inclusion of TIP candidates. We don’t have a presidential but we expect to have a stronger opposition in Parliament.
Our campaign is going very well. Our only obstacle is the CHP propaganda against the TIP. It’s a huge attack. They are literally pushing people to not vote TIP. We are hearing from people things like “we want to vote for you, but that means Erdogan will win,” which doesn’t make any sense. But since it is CHP propaganda, it has a huge influence. On the other hand, we are getting more and more people united with us.
Our discourse has a great reception in the street campaign. In contrast, when AKP campaigns on the street, people literally attack them, not physically, but verbally. So most of the time the AKP has to abandon its street campaign. However, we can win some MPs in the elections, but in Turkey, you never know until everybody votes. Because, since the polarization is so high and people are so fed up with the AKP, even though they like us, even though they support us, even though they become our members, they might not vote for us. So we will see.
Can you tell us more about the TIP?
The TIP is a socialist organization that consists of many people from different backgrounds, including some Trotskyist groups, though these have been assimilated. So it’s a relatively heterogeneous organization. But the main idea is to be against the AKP and to raise equality.
It is a mass party. We have four MPs in Parliament and have achieved a very strong level of support from the influence of these four MPs, which has also led many people to join the party. Most of the people that have joined are not necessarily socialists, but they are open minded and can be changed. And it was the MPs that opened a path for this. That is why it’s so important to be in Parliament. The TIP supports the Kurdish people’s autonomy, their right to decide their own destiny. We also want to build a workers country, a country where women and LGBT can breathe.