In Türkiye, the pro-Kurdish elected mayor of the city of Van was denied a certificate of appointment. The protests against this were now successful.
In Diyarbakir on April 2, people protested against Zeydan's subsequent exclusion. Photo: Mehmet Masum Suer/Sopa Images
ISTANBUL dpa | After protests against his exclusion of a pro-Kurdish politician from his mayoralty, Turkey's supreme electoral authority reviewed the decision. The authority granted politician Abdullah Zeydan the mandate for mayor of the eastern Turkish city of Van, thus confirming the objection of his party, state news agency Anadolu reported on Wednesday.
Zeydan was elected mayor on Sunday in the Turkish local elections in Van with 55 percent. However, according to his party, he was denied the certificate of appointment. The local electoral authority justified his decision by saying that Zeydan had a criminal record and therefore should not have run in the elections, state news agency Anadolu reported.
Electoral authorities had approved Zeydan as a candidate in Sunday's elections weeks ago. Instead of Zeydan, the second-place candidate from the AKP, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's party, should be appointed mayor. According to preliminary results, in Van this percentage reached around 27 percent.
The Democratic party, for which Zeydan ran, objected to the decision. In many Turkish cities people protested against the decision, also because the incident was reminiscent of the dismissals of local pro-Kurdish politicians in the past.
In the 2019 local elections, the pro-Kurdish party under the name HDP won 65 mayoral positions, but the Ankara government dismissed most of the politicians due to terrorism accusations and replaced them with trustees.