The Communist Party of Turkey evaluated the results of the local elections.
ICP, 3 April 2019
The elections for municipalities and local administrations in Turkey were held on March 31. The results show serious negative signs for the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), as it lost the control of many big cities, including İstanbul and Ankara.
On April 1, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) issued a statement and evaluated the results of the elections. The Party states that Turkey enters into a severe economic, political and social crisis despite the calls for normalization made by the representatives of capital to postpone it. It is made clear that no success story or any sort of hope for the people can be created from the electoral victories of the main opposition party, which has entered into a crisis of its own.
As to the electoral victory of the TKP in Dersim, the statement reads, "As the representative of a broad alliance, the candidate of the Communist Party of Turkey, Fatih Mehmet Maçoğlu has won the Dersim provincial municipality. This victory has a historical significance in Turkey. Together with our friends, we will do everything we can in order to extend the perspective of 'people’s municipality' to the provincial level. We congratulate the people of Dersim for their decisions."
Receiving more than 130 thousand votes for the municipal councils, the Communist Party of Turkey succeeded in these elections with radically increased rates of votes despite all the challenges, impositions, and restrictions. The Party received high rates of votes in some districts that it aimed to govern as examples of people’s municipalities but did not succeed due to some last minute developments. "TKP does not and cannot confine itself to elections," it is explained, "communists have been expanding in dozens of new districts and neighbourhoods and we do not see the outcome of these mentioned districts as a failure. On the contrary, we consider those areas as our new holds." In these elections, which gave the impression of a "two-party system," those who want to overthrow the system in Turkey and to establish a socialist country have cast their votes for the communists.
The statement ends as follows: "Those voted for the Communist Party should keep in mind that their will has a significant outcome: Hope is flourishing in Turkey. Our party is working on the detailed assessments of the election results and launches an even more intense period of work than the electoral period, so that the people of Turkey will not be condemned to the order of capitalists, imperialists, and reactionaries with whom “we are not in the same boat”. We are thankful to all citizens who voted for us or supported us in various ways. Once again, we call on those whose hearts are with the TKP to join our struggle. We will be stronger together: If money has its reign, working people have their Communist Party!"
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