People’s Equality and Democracy Party (DEM) candidate Abdullah Zejdan was barred from the mayoral post by local electoral authorities, even though he won the mayoralty of Van in Sunday’s municipal elections. He won about 55% of the vote, said the DEM, which has challenged the electoral authorities’ decision.
The position of mayor will be filled by the candidate of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), which came second with 27% of the vote.
The opposition center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), which defeated the AKP in the municipal elections, condemned the decision on the Van mayor post and called for a review.
Local election authorities claim that Zejdan has a criminal record and should not have run in the elections, Anadolu news agency reports. The DEM claims that he was informed of this decision only after the election.
This incident brings to mind the mass dismissal of Kurdish politicians from their positions in 2019. The Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) won 65 mayoral positions in the municipal elections that year, but the government dismissed most of them from their positions citing possible links to terrorism as a pretext.
