This poetic province of southeast Turkey in the Mesopotamian plains witnessed competition between the governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and a party rooted in the Kurdish political movement -- which will enter the June 7 parliamentary election as the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) -- in the early 2000s, but the HDP seems to have the strongest support among locals this time around. “In order to be able to go to Kızıltepe [a town in Mardin province] and run an election campaign, I have to have 50 armed men around me,” said Orhan Miroğlu, a Kurdish intellectual who has become the AK Party's strongest candidate from Mardin. Speaking to a group of İstanbul-based journalists who visited his office in the town of Midyat with P24 -- also known as the Platform for Independent Journalism -- to observe the regional candidates' election campaigns, Miroğlu said the HDP is disturbing the AK Party's election campaign. “In my town, the HDP election campaign workers act freely and I like it very much,” he said. “That's how it needs to be.” Asked by the journalists why the government is not taking enough precautions to prevent violent attacks against the HDP, he said: “I condemn violent attacks against the HDP. … If the government is not conducting an effective investigation, that is wrong; it needs to be done.” Asked who is likely to be responsible for the attacks on the HDP's offices, Miroğlu said “deep forces.” HDP officials have reported more than 60 attacks on the party's election offices across Turkey. The latest one occurred on Monday as simultaneous bomb blasts hit two of the HDP's offices, wounding six people in the two southern cities of Adana and Mersin. The latter city was where HDP Co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş was due to hold a public rally on the same day. Thousands of HDP supporters held a demonstration on Tuesday in mainly Kurdish Diyarbakır to protest the explosions, gathering in front of the HDP's Diyarbakır branch office. A large-scale demonstration in Adana also protested the explosions on Tuesday. Demirtaş said President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, formerly the prime minister and leader of the AK Party, has still not condemned the bomb blasts. AK Party candidate Miroğlu's words about the violence in the election campaign have contrasted with those of HDP candidate Mithat Sancar, an academic who was born in Mardin. “Mardin is the most peaceful electoral region. The biggest political party flag flown in the town center in Midyat belongs to the MHP [Nationalist Movement Party]. Not even one act of harassment will occur here regarding other parties' campaigns,” he said. Responding to further questions from P24 journalists, he said: “If the HDP responds to the attacks, we would have returned to the old days full of violence, and that's what the government wants. If there is a bomb placed somewhere, and the PKK [the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, whose leader, Abdullah Öcalan, has been engaged in peace talks with the government to end the decades-old conflict over the Kurdish issue] accepts responsibility, the most profitable party of the election would have been the AKP [AK Party]. Indeed, the AKP openly points to the HDP as the target to be attacked.” Candidates are competing for six parliamentary seats in Mardin, which has a population of around 750,000 and about 440,000 registered voters. Deputies from the AK Party and independents supported by the pro-Kurdish HDP currently share those six parliamentary seats. Mardin Mayor Ahmet Türk is a well-known senior Kurdish nationalist politician who was elected on March 30, 2014. Sancar said the HDP could guarantee four seats in Parliament this time “even if they sit back at home” but they are aiming to reach at least five seats.

• published: 20 May 2015
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