ERBIL, Kurdistan Region —The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party’s (HDP) candidate for Diyarbakir (Amed) mayor, who won the province in March 31 local election, was certified by Turkey’s electoral body on Wednesday following weeks of uncertainty.
“We regained municipalities through people’s efforts after about two-and-half years. Our people are the owners of this victory,” the new mayor, Adnan Selcuk Mizrakli, said in a press conference.
Mizrakli will also have a co-mayor, Hulya Alokmen Uynak, as his party shares top positions between men and women, regardless of who wins under the party’s gender-balance system.
Diyarbakir’s prosecutor had launched an investigation into both co-mayors on April 5 for allegedly supporting terrorism after they were seen at an event with the pro-Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) slogans.
“We were celebrating the election victory,” Alokmen told Rudaw English at the time. “The event was organized by [HDP’s] provincial office in Diyarbakir. All the co-chairs who won in the election met there. [The prosecutor] wanted to launch an investigation into this event. We have been under pressure since the election began. All our steps were monitored.”
Mizrakli shared a video on his Twitter account, showing him entering his new office for the first time, claiming that the trustee who had been in office since 2016 had spent public money to decorate the office.
“Look, look! What they have created with the people’s money … We will expose all their waste of money,” he said in the tweet.
The Turkish Supreme Election Council (YSK) had declared that it would not certify those winners who had previously been removed from office during the State of Emergency since 2016.
The decision affected the HDP more than most other parties as most of its mayors and municipal councils’ members were previously removed due to alleged connections with the PKK — connections which the HDP deny.
The party’s contentious winner in Mardin, Ahmed Turk, was also certified on April 15 and he shared the position with a co-mayor, Figen Altindag.
Five days earlier HDP’s mayor for Van, Bedia Ozgokce Ertan was the first mayor for a metropolis to be certified.