The HDP’s victory is a barrier against autocracy in Turkey
Turkey must be one of the few countries in the world where the supporters of the smallest party in parliament celebrate as if they are the masters of the universe.
On Sunday evening, when the results of the parliamentary elections started coming in, it didn’t take long for the people to realize that the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) had successfully passed the 10 percent electoral threshold. HDP supporters took to the streets to join the spontaneous celebrations that erupted in many places, dancing the halay, waving Kurdish flags, honking car horns and shouting slogans like “We are the HDP, we’re going to parliament!”
The euphoric mood among HDP voters and sympathizers stemmed from the fact that the party’s electoral victory marked the first time in Turkish history that a pro-Kurdish party has entered into parliament. The icing on the cake of the HDP’s success was the realization that most of the seats that from now on will be occupied by the HDP’s representatives formerly belonged to the ruling AKP, which lost its majority in parliament for the first time in their thirteen years in power.
For the first time, a
pro-Kurdish party has entered into the Turkish parliament, throwing a
spanner in the works of Erdoğan’s autocratic ambitions.
