(Part 2 of 2)

The Ergenekon trial – which has all the elements of a political potboiler – has been unfolding as the AKP is actively courting the Kurdish vote ahead of the March 29 polls.

Most analysts believe the AKP will emerge the dominant party in the March 29 polls. The reason, according to Jenny White, a professor at Boston University and author of the book, “Islamist Mobilization in Turkey,” is not so much the strength of the AKP as the weakness of the opposition parties.

“The main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party [CHP], is just a joke,” says White. “The real importance of this election is that it’s going to tell us how much – if any – of its popularity the ruling AK party has lost in the past few years.”

With Turkish Kurds comprising approximately 20% of the country’s population, the Islamist party is seeking to woo this vote away from Kurdish parties, notably the DTP (Democratic Society Party), the country's main Kurdish party.

ELECTION CAMPAIGNING The ruling AKP campaigns for the March 29 polls. (Photo: D. Bouclon)

Earlier this year, when Turkey launched TRT6 – its first official Kurdish language TV station – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised eyebrows when he included a sentence in the Kurdish language at a campaign rally. "May TRT6 be beneficial," said the popular AKP politician in a language that is still banned in official Turkish settings.

During campaign stops in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey, Erdogan has been distributing free refrigerators, washing machines and coal to poor families in a move that has sparked opposition ire.

But even the opposition is unable to ignore the Kurdish vote. In a sign of just how much times have changed, the staunchly secular CHP has toned down its rhetoric about the spectre of sharia law and Kurdish separatism in Turkey, experts say. Instead, CHP politicians this year have called for Nawroz – the Kurdish new year, which falls on March 21 – to be declared a national holiday.

No Kurdish please, we’re parliamentarians
 

Not everyone’s impressed by these gestures. “These are just attempts by the AKP and even the CHP to get the Kurdish vote,” says Mustafa Gundogdu of the London-based Kurdish Human Rights Project. “But while the AKP says it wants to allow the Kurdish language, at the same time Kurdish politicians themselves are being punished for speaking Kurdish.”

TURKEY'S KURDS SEEK ANSWERS Part one: ‘Saturday mothers’ return, seeking answers

Just weeks after Erdogan’s headline-grabbing Kurdish sentence, Turkish state TV cut off a live broadcast when the DTP chief used the Kurdish language during a parliamentary speech. In the past, a Kurdish parliamentarian was stripped of her immunity and served 10 years in jail for speaking Kurdish in parliament.

While Erdogan has attempted to endear himself to the country’s Kurds, Kurdish rights are a delicate issue in Turkey and his administration has had to tread carefully since it came to power seven years ago.

“The AKP has taken insufficient steps on minority rights,” says Emma Sinclair-Webb of the New York-based Human Rights Watch. “The Kurdish language TV station is clearly a positive step that breaks taboos about the use of minority languages. But the AKP has done a lot less than it could have done and there’s still a lot more to do.”

The presence of the Saturday mothers on Istiklal Street, says Sinclair-Webb, is just one sign that the myriad knots in Turkey’s human rights remain tightly bound. For now, says Sinclair-Webb, the unusually silent, somber gatherings seem here to stay. “Every week, it’s getting more coordinated and there is growing momentum,” says Sinclair-Webb. “It remains to be seen how far there will be a political commitment to untangling all the knots.”

Part 1: 'Saturday mothers' return, seeking answers