Turkish Court Suspends Funding for Pro-Kurdish Party

Facts

• Turkey's Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled 8-7 in favor of freezing Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) bank accounts holding treasury funds while a case on banning the party over alleged ties to the terrorist-designated Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) continues.
• This decision, which deprives the second-largest opposition group in the Turkish parliament of key revenue ahead of June's general elections, comes as the HDP was reportedly due to receive $29M in treasury funding this year.
• Next Tuesday, chief prosecutor Bekir Şahin is due to plead his case to disband the party before the vote, and if the court rules against the HDP, it will be able to either dissolve the party or ban some of its members.
• The HDP has been a significant political force since 2015, winning 80 parliament seats that year to temporarily prevent the ruling AKP from securing a majority. It garnered nearly 12% of the votes in the 2018 parliamentary elections and then helped the opposition win mayoral races in Ankara and Istanbul in 2019.
• The party has denied accusations of acting on behalf of the PKK, which has waged an insurgency since 1984, claiming that it has been targeted by Erdoğan's government due to its past electoral success and growing appeal beyond Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast region.
• Though the HDP is not part of the six-party opposition alliance, it could become the kingmaker as polls suggest that neither the AKP nor the unified opposition bloc will win a majority in parliament.

Sources: Reuters, Al Jazeera, Alarabiya, Bloomberg, Washington Post, and Politico.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Daily Sabah. This temporary freezing of funds is just the latest step in the ongoing battle to combat the HDP's long list of wrongdoings. The party has long colluded with the terrorist PKK and its affiliated groups, transferring taxpayer money to and actively providing personnel in defiance of the democratic and universal rules of law to undermine the unity of the Turkish state.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by DW. Erdoğan’s continuous attempt to dissolve or otherwise limit the HDP — including through the dismissal of dozens of HDP politicians from office since 2015 — undermines the ability of Turkish voters to chose their representation, and is thus an attack on democracy and pluralism. This latest move must be condemned.
• Cynical narrative, as provided by Middle East Eye. The court has clearly become an election tool for the ruling government; it's no coincidence that it ruled this way just months before general elections despite rejecting the same request twice in the past year.