2024-04-05T18:59:11+00:00
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/ Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerli Kaya announced the arrest of 340 people in connection with the events that broke out during the tensions in the city of Van, southeast of the country, after an opposition party objected to canceling the victory of its candidate, due to his criminal record, and granting the position to the candidate of the Justice and Development Party. the ruler.
Yerli Kaya said, in his post on the “X” platform, that the security forces launched “Operation Bozdogan-20,” which resulted in the arrest of 340 suspects who carried out illegal actions in the streets on behalf of the “separatist terrorist organization,” as he put it.
The Turkish minister added, “The arrests took place in 14 provinces, including Van, Diyarbakir, Izmir, Mardin, Antalya, Mersin, and the capital, Ankara.”
The Turkish Interior Minister confirmed that the suspects attacked the security forces with stones, showed resistance by not dispersing despite the warnings, chanted slogans praising the “separatist terrorist organization,” and promoted it through their accounts on social media.
Hundreds of Kurdish party supporters took to the streets of the city of Van before the police intervened and fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrations, while the authorities announced a ban on marches and demonstrations in the province for 15 days.
Despite the authorities’ decision, the demonstrators continued to riot, before the Supreme Elections Council accepted the appeal submitted by the “Dem” party to reinstate its candidate, Abdullah Zidane, for the position of mayor of the state.
After the decision of the Supreme Elections Council, hundreds also took to the streets to show joy despite the ban on marches and gatherings, while the party issued a statement in which it said that the decision of the Supreme Elections Council came as a result of “the resistance of the Kurdish people.”
The state of Van, eastern Turkey, witnessed riots that prompted the police and law enforcement forces to intervene, after hundreds of supporters of the Kurdish Democratic Movement Party “Dem” took to the streets in objection to the decision of the Turkish Supreme Election Council to withdraw the victory of the party’s candidate, due to his criminal record, and granted The mayor’s office goes to the second candidate in terms of number of votes, who is the candidate of the ruling Justice and Development Party.
Protest from the opposition
The appeal submitted by the party, the third largest party in the Turkish Parliament, which performed well in the southeast of the country, which is inhabited by a Kurdish majority, represented the largest dispute over the results of the local elections held on Sunday, in which the ruling “Justice and Development” Party, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, suffered. A crushing defeat.
Abdullah Zidane, the candidate of the “Equality and Peoples’ Democracy” Party in the city of Van, received 55.5% of the votes, compared to 27.2% for the “Justice and Development” candidate.
But the Equality and Peoples’ Democracy Party said that the Ministry of Justice sent a message 5 minutes before the offices closed, last Friday and two days before the vote, objecting to Zidane’s nomination, and a court subsequently ruled that he was not eligible to run.
A document issued by the Van Election Board showed that the second-place finisher from the Justice and Development Party would receive the mandate for the mayor’s position instead of Zidane.
The Ministry referred questions about this issue to the country’s Supreme Election Commission, which referred the case to the Office of the Election Commission in Van.
The movement denies accusations that it supports the Kurds, but thousands of them were arrested and mayors were dismissed after the previous elections, to be replaced by state officials. The “Equality and Peoples’ Democracy” party was founded last year, to replace a party facing trial over such alleged connections that could lead to its closure.
Supporters of the Justice and Development Party clashed with supporters of the opposition Democracy and Progress Party in the Bervari district of the city of Siirt, in a Kurdish-majority region in southeastern Turkey, on Tuesday evening. The brother of one of the opposition candidates was killed, and 4 people were injured during the confrontations.
Following local elections held on Sunday, in which the opposition did well mainly throughout Türkiye.
The candidate of the “Justice and Development” Party won the mayorship of Bervari after winning 52% of the votes, while the candidate of the “Democracy and Progress” Party came in second place with about 40%.
The governor’s office stated that 5 were injured in the clashes, and one of them died of his wounds. Vice President of the “Democracy and Progress” Party, Mohamed Amin Ekman, said that the victim is the brother of the party’s candidate.
A loss for Erdogan
The official final results of the Turkish municipal elections showed, after all the votes had been counted, that the opposition Republican People’s Party came out on top, obtaining 37.76% of the votes across the country with a population of 85 million people, followed by the ruling Justice and Development Party with 35.48%.
The Republican People’s Party’s sweeping victory in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and the rest of the municipalities of Turkish cities was a shock to Erdogan, who was seeking to establish his dominance over the political scene in the country, since these local elections, although they were “service”, took on a major political character.
The conservative Justice and Development Party no longer controls any of the largest Turkish cities, but rather lost provinces and municipalities that it considered impregnable strongholds in the past to the Republican People’s Party.
Erdogan himself said on Sunday evening: “We will cooperate with the mayors who won,” calling on his camp to practice “self-criticism.”
The president’s calm speech before a crowd of shocked supporters surprised observers, as he directly accepted the rise of the opposition, describing it as a “turning point” for the Justice and Development Party.
However, with its control of 265 seats, the Justice and Development Party is still the strongest bloc in Parliament, which consists of 598 seats, and its alliance with the National Movement Party raises its number of seats in Parliament to 314.