AKP Suffers Major Election Defeat In Towns Bordering Kobanê

In today’s general election in Turkey the Peoples’ Democractic Party (HDP) swept all of the towns and villages bordering the city of Kobanê, where locals fought a fierce battle against an ISIS offensive that lasted for more than 100 days, according to an article from Özgür Gündem.

The HDP won more than 13% of the national vote in an historic election in which the ruling AKP failed to win enough seats to protect its majority in parliament. The HDP will now enter parliament as a party for the first time in its history, having passed the 10% threshold imposed by the constitution written in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup. In villages and towns in the district of Suruç directly north of Kobanê the HDP won a record-breaking 91% of the votes.

The elections results will make it very difficult for Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan to consolidate his powers by pushing through changes to the constitution that would enhance the power of the presidency.

At the time of the ISIS attacks on Kobanê President Erdoğan had said that ‘Kobanê had fallen and would continue to fall.’ The district of Suruç, just across the border from Kobanê and within the province of Urfa, became a major center of resistance to ISIS and to the Turkish state’s support for the group.

Below is the summary of the results from Suruç.

Alizer: HDP 333 – AKP 5

Dewşen: HDP 120 – AKP 1

Mehser: HDP 133- AKP 42

Boydê: HDP 144- AKP 9

Şahmanî: HDP 102 – AKP 12

Balaban: HDP 276 – AKP 44

Koç: HDP 244 – AKP 8

Halep: HDP 103 – AKP 3

Perepere: HDP 850 – AKP 105

Tilanter: HDP 82 – AKP 1

Total: HDP 2,387 – AKP 230