Now is the time to delve in the fresh joy of victory, to study, understand and elaborate the lessons of resistance. The victory of Wan reminds us of the following: fascism will be pushed back not by elections but by the resistance of our people. And only the revolution will be able to defeat it entirely.
The 2024 local elections have finally taken place, following a lenghty preparatory phase which almost resembled general elections in the circumstances that surrounded it. The local elections, which took place with a lower participation rate than previously, produced striking results in many aspects and created new conditions for the political struggle to develop. At the same time, data and numbers significantly affected the power and position distribution and political alignment of bourgeois politics.
The fascist AKP-MHP bloc (governing coalition consisting of the political Islamist Adalet ve Kurulus Partisi and the ultranationalist Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi)suffered electoral defeat both in the Turkish West and Northern Kurdistan. It was defeated by the bourgeois opposition party CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, Kemalist party) in Turkey, and by the DEM Party (Demokratik Partisi, progressive party, successor of the HDP), the united democratic front of the oppressed, in Bakûr (N. Kurdistan). The AKP-MHP bloc, tightly harnessed to its colonialist war aspirations, was defeated completely in Kurdistan. The Kurdish people, to emphasize the events rheotrically, turned the local elections into a national referendum of sorts. They regained those municipalities that were usurped by the AKP in a coup against elected trustees and increased the number of municipal positions. Our Kurdish people won, in spite of organized election fraud and tens of thousands of voters from Turkish provinces sent to Bakûr by the fascist regime. Erdoğan’s ambitions to manipulate the elections by sending thousands upon thousands of policemen and soldiers to Kurdish polling stations were shattered by an honorable, organized Kurdish will.
And thus, the collapse plan of the denialist racist Turkish colonialists has suffered yet another clear political defeat. The war and occupation policy of the colonial rulers against the three regions of Kurdistan under the command of the AKP-MHP fascist bloc can be cited as one of the main reasons behind this development. Its insistence on staunchly following its colonialist policy towards an occupational war and practices of suppressing our people’s demand for political freedom with unbridled fascist terror conditioned the losses of the AKP-MHP bloc. On the other hand, it should be strongly emphasized that the Kurdish freedom movement contributed to and achieved this election victory by organizing, step by step. The aftermath of the 2023 elections set out the path for practical self-criticism. It renewed and strengthened the will of the organization during the primaries, straightened to the revolutionary line of the Kurdish freedom movement with the Freedom March, and embraced the power of resistance and resurrection of Newroz. It arose victorious by preparing for the elections with action.
The result of the local elections marked and sealed the second historical and major defeat of the political Islamist AKP during its 22-year period in power. After the June 7 elections, the AKP has now suffered a heavy, undeniable defeat at this level for the second time. It is for this reason that some parts of the laboring left are now comparing and even equalizing this years local with last year’s general elections. This, however, is a fundamentally wrong assessment. It is a manifestation of some sections of the laboring left movement turning their back to 3rd front politics. First of all, we can point only one subject that cost the AKP losses in the June 7 elections: the HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, now largely criminalized). The June 7 election victory was achieved by relying on Gezi, the rebellion of our people. The snowballing social dissatisfaction and the will of the oppressed to hold the fascist regime to account are directly embodied in the politics of HDP and the 3rd front. June 7 is the achievement of the united front policy of our people and the laboring left movement. The alignment took place directly on an anti-fascist, anti-chauvinist axis. This is not the place to overcross stalk and straw, but to separate them.
The political situation surroudning the March 31 elections is different. The bourgeois opposition party CHP is at one end of the table that caused today’s defeat of the AKP-MHP fascist bloc, and at the other end stands the united democratic front party of our people, DEM. To interpret today’s AKP-MHP defeat as a “spring of the people” as in the Gezi rebellion and HDP’s June 7 victory is, to say the least, ignorant. This is also an expression of the ideo-political disintegration of the reformist left. Conducting political analysis by placing the bourgeois opposition party CHP and the united democratic front of the oppressed, DEM Party, on the same level means thinking and acting from the standpoint of the bourgeois opposition. All working left segments that treat CHP and DEM Party as a simple political arithmetic sum against AKP-MHP prevent the oppressed from forming a proper front against fascism. Moreover, this cynical thinking and distorted view cannot see and evaluate the favorable conditions and revolutionary opportunities that exist today in favor of the working class and the oppressed. However, the resistance of the people of Van and our Kurdish people as a whole has shaken these cynical, conformist and insecure tendencies that have given up the courage to fight.
Whether we accept it or not, a new period of struggle and political conjuncture has ringed in. The first experiences that will determine the character of the new period of struggle have emerged in all their simplicity. The trustee coup attempt stands as a striking introduction to the political character of the upcoming period. It demonstrates a perspecttive to those political subjects who are want to understand and are willing to fight tooth and nail against fascism.
The denialist colonial rulers declared war on the results of the election victory in Northern Kurdistan. The fact and prediction that the AKP-MHP fascist bloc will continue its colonial trustee policy uninterruptedly was embodied in the first ‘moment’ after the announcement election results. The AKP-MHP fascist bloc, who organized all kinds of conspiracies and traps at the very beginning of the process, tried to oevrthrow the Van Metropolitan Municipality, using both official and illegal methods. The AKP-MHP fascist bloc carried out a fascist attack concept with the trustee coup in a desperate attempt to reverse its political defeat.
The first attempt of usurping the municipalities in Bakûr was directed against Wan. It demonstrated the fascist strategy in the most reckless manner, intervening in the will of the people under the cover of fabricated laws. The people of Van met the colonial trustee coup with strong and uncompromising resistance. They did not allow their will to be crushed and their determination to gorvern be toppled. They stood firm against the election fraud and repression and crowned his election with the victory of the resistance. The political attitude and reflexes of the laboring left movement at this moment also developed positively. The opportunity for a united struggle of the oppressed against the colonialist fascist regime was seized and put into practice. Revolutionary socialists shouldered the task of fighting at the forefront of the struggle against the trustee coup in Northern Kurdistan and Turkey.
Defending ourselves against the trustee coups marks the beginning of a new period of struggle. We resisted and defended the people’s positions and regained what was ours. We celebrate the victory of our people who repelled the coup with tremendous and uncompromising resistance. The circumstances and preparations that preceded the election results are rising to the surface today; they are an indication that political and social conditions are working in favor of the working class and the oppressed.
The AKP-MHP fascist bloc is weaker than it was yesterday. Our people’s desire for change and freedom from Erdoğan and his fascist regime is getting stronger. The poverty crisis is deepening. The bread on the table of the working class is getting smaller every day. Misery and hunger continue to surround the lives of millions of workers. The gap between rich and poor is expanding by the day. Pensioners can no longer bear welcoming the fascist head-of-state with open arms. The deterioration of livelihood and living conditions draws all oppressed and exploited social classes into its vortex. Poverty, housing and a fear of no future turn the lives of young people into a nightmare. Women are crushed under poverty and beimg imprisoned in the fascist family model. The area of freedom is slimming down, increasingly.
Now is the time to delve in the fresh joy of victory, to study, understand and elaborate the lessons of resistance. The victory of Wan reminds us of the following: fascism will be pushed back not by elections but by the resistance of our people. And only the revolution will be able to defeat it entirely.
*Editorial of the 162nd issue of ATILIM newspaper, Voice of the Working Class and the Oppressed, dated 05 April.