The BDP’s difficult choices over Dec 17

At last, the Kurdish movement had found an interlocutor who gave hope of a political solution and peace. However, this interlocutor is now loaded with serious corruption and bribery claims.

In the deadlocked “peace and resolution process,” the interlocutor of the Kurdish movement is again this Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, the legitimacy of which has been harmed by graft claims. The Kurdish movement is concerned about what has happened to its interlocutor.

One possibility is that the interlocutor will be overthrown. Or, even if it stays, it will have become so weak and its legitimacy will have been so disrupted that it will not be able to serve the resolution process. Both possibilities have the same result.

The Kurdish movement does not have any hope of finding an alternative interlocutor for now other than the AKP. Otherwise, I’m sure they would have tackled the situation differently.

The Kurdish movement considers the “Dec. 17” graft operation to be a “coup” against Prime Minister Erdoğan and claims that the move has come from the “parallel state.”

As seen, their presentation of the “Dec. 17” incident is almost identical to that of the AKP. One difference is that the Kurdish movement regards the Gülen community not as the “parallel state” itself, but only a “factor” in it.

This could be their genuine opinion, or it could be a “realpolitik” stance coming out of concern for providing support to Erdoğan’s AKP in difficult times. The result is the same.

Since “Dec. 17” is a “parallel state” coup staged to overthrow a democratically elected government and is thus an illegitimate initiative, shouldn’t the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) consider the corruption and bribery claims in the investigation as illegitimate, just like Erdoğan and the AKP, and implicitly approve of the covering up of these claims?

As a matter of fact, these expressions also belong to BDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş: “The [Gülen] community has given Erdoğan the message that this state is not your state. We have listened and monitored for so long and you had no idea. This is our state, we will run it.” However, the situation is not so simple from the angle of the BDP.

Supporting the cover up of corruption to save its interlocutor will have a cost for the BDP’s legitimacy and it is aware of that. Here is what Demirtaş said: “We are not saying that as the BDP we should hide this robbery, or that we should shoulder this load so that Erdoğan stays in power. If he tolerates theft, then he may go. We are against corruption in principle.”

Demirtaş also has assumptions and suggestions for a solution: “The Dec. 17 operation is an opportunity to eliminate the parallel state and move the process forward. However, the capacity of the AKP to realize this transformation is very weak. The AKP should stop intervening in justice regarding this theft. Democracy should be strengthened and the new Constitution process should be revived.

Thus, while you are fighting the parallel state, you would be able to secure yourself with the cordon of democracy. If the prime minister does all this, and if he hasn’t stolen, he will also be saved.”
As seen, the current situation is not easy for anybody.