A regional ballot in a unitary state?

As tension rises in the face of a possible court decision to close down Turkey’s pro-Kurdish party, experts say shuttering the party could lead the country into political chaos.

Among scenarios that could be triggered by the DTP’s closure is even the possibility of new regional by-elections in the Southeast. It is an outcome that could further enflame Turkish politics.

“I hope the Constitutional Court will make its decision with common sense. A possible decision to close down the party would eliminate the political interlocutor in the Parliament in the solution of the Kurdish question,” Eser Karakaş, an academic from Bahçeşehir University, told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

“We can criticize the [Democratic Society Party] DTP in some aspects, but it still plays the role of a damper and represents a legal interlocutor in addressing the Kurdish problem,” Karakaş said. “The closure of the party may lead to chaos.”

The political mayhem started with the dissatisfaction and uproar of the pro-Kurdish DTP over the government’s Kurdish move to end the 25-year terror problem and the recent transfer of Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, to a new building on İmralı Island in the Marmara Sea.

DTP criticism of Öcalan’s allegedly degraded prison conditions has recently resulted in an argument voiced by party leader Ahmet Türk that the party will take its struggle to protect Kurdish rights to the popular level instead of continuing it at the parliamentary level if the Constitutional Court decides to disband the party.

The move was followed over the weekend by all DTP deputies submitting their resignation letters to party head Ahmet Türk, who will process them if the party is closed down.

Street conflicts may emerge

The incidents coincided with Tuesday’s session of the top court, which will begin hearing the closure case against the DTP. If the Constitutional Court decides to close the party, eight DTP deputies – including Türk – would be dismissed from Parliament and banned from politics for a period of five years each. In the event of this happening, the party’s 13 remaining deputies will submit their petitions for resignation to Parliament.

The DTP is currently represented by 21 deputies in the Parliament. According to the Constitution, 28 seats must be vacated to hold by-elections within three months. Six seats were already vacant in the Parliament, so the DTP resignations, the number of empty seats to 27. If the party receives support from independent deputy Ufuk Uras, the number of empty seats will be 28, which is sufficient to hold by-elections.

According to the Constitution, the resignations can be valid if an absolute majority in the General Assembly votes for it. Since the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, holds the majority in the General Assembly, the fate of the DTP will be in the hands of the AKP. If the ruling party’s deputies vote for the resignations, the process would pave the way for by-elections to be held among the DTP’s constituencies, which are concentrated in eastern and southeastern Anatolia.

‘AKP doesn’t accept resignations’ 

Karakaş thinks the DTP’s decision to take the struggle to the popular level is a technically difficult one as the DTP deputies’ resignations will be subject to the approval of the AKP.

“This is not a one-sided decision. I don’t think the AKP will accept their resignations, which may lead to by-elections. Going to by-elections implies a kind of referendum and a referendum can’t be a solution for the Kurdish problem as long as basic rights are concerned,” Karakaş said. “There should be a legal interlocutor in the solution of the Kurdish issue and it is the party that already exists in the Parliament. If the party is closed down, there will not be an interlocutor.”

A by-election can only be held 30 months after a general election and one year before the next one. In this case, the Constitution allows a by-election to be held from now until July 22, 2010, as general elections are set for the second week of July 2011.

As with the AKP’s closure case last year, it will take time for the Constitutional Court to issue a reasoning on the DTP case after it makes a decision on whether or not to close the party. The court could reportedly release this in the beginning of the summer, nixing the possibility of by-elections no matter how many seats are vacated in the Parliament.

Echoing Karakaş’ remarks, Professor Özer Sencar, the head of the Ankara-based MetroPOLLsurvey company, said the DTP deputies had threatened the AKP with their resignations, but the probability was low that the AKP would accept them and go for by-elections. He said this was unlikely in a period during which the AKP has not been able to manage its Kurdish move well, likely leading to a decline in the ruling party’s votes in the event of such an election.

“I think the AKP will prefer to conclude its Kurdish initiative instead of contributing to the DTP’s move,” Sencar said. “Turkey just came off from general-election-like local elections in March and such a possible by-election would be held in all provinces across the country where the DTP won parliamentary seats.”

“A new election campaigning process is likely to cause a budget deficit and imply a delay in the crucial ongoing political projects. I don’t think the AKP will venture such a risk,” he said, adding that he did think the AKP was likely to win seats in the DTP’s constituencies in the Southeast if the DTP were closed.

With regard to the closure case, Sencar said a closure decision would strengthen the hand of Öcalan and his supporters and lead to a chaotic atmosphere.

“Street conflicts may emerge and the pressure from Öcalan’s supporters is likely to increase on government to see him as an interlocutor as a result of a possible closure decision,” Sencar said.

Erol Tuncer, head of the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey, or TESAV, said a closure decision would deepen the polarization between the Kurds and Turks. He said such a decision would also cripple the AKP’s democratic move and cause problems in the representation of Kurds in the Parliament.

“I think the DTP wants to protest the AKP rather than plan a by-election. If the party is closed down, political and street conflicts may arise, but the state has its own measures to control the street conflicts,” Tuncer said.

The AKP’s Bekir Bozdağ and the party’s Diyarbakır deputy Kudbettin Arzu meanwhile told the Daily News that the possibility of a by-election was low. Arzu said the DTP’s move to return back to the populace was a wrong decision, especially in the face of the AKP’s Kurdish move.

Interior Minister Beşir Atalay said Monday that the AKP opposes the closure of political parties.