Defeating the 10 Percent: the HDP's rise and fall in the 2015 Turkish general elections

Abstract

The June 2015 Turkish general elections marked a historical win for the Kurdish political party, the HDP (People’s Democratic Party). For the first time in Turkish democratic history, a Kurdish political party, without a party alliance, managed to pass the parliamentary threshold of 10 percent with 13.1 percent of Turkey’s vote. In doing so, the HDP gained a place in parliament to represent Kurdish voices in a country that historically oppressed Kurdish people. However, just five months later, in November 2015 the HDP barely passed the threshold with 10.7 percent of the vote. This thesis explored how the HDP lost their parliamentary advantage in five months and what events occurred during those five months that affected the Turkish vote for the HDP. By using three methods, a content analysis on a human rights court case by Selahattin Demirtaş, the co-leader of the HDP, and a content analysis on media articles published about the HDP, and brief historical analysis of the events that occurred during the election period, this thesis found that the AKP’s (Justice and Development Party) ethnic association between the HDP and PKK, a Kurdish “terrorist” group, affected the HDP vote negatively. This thesis argued that the ending of the PKK peace agreements in July 2015, which began fighting between the PKK and Turkish state in Southeastern Turkey, a region where a majority of Kurds reside, afflicted the region with increased militarization and violence that affected the HDP vote negatively in the November 2015 elections. These findings revealed a larger trend of the targeting of Kurdish political parties in Turkey and restrictions on the democratic processes conducted by the Turkish government.