Erdogan’s Latest Gamble Backfires in Istanbul Vote

The desperation to win Istanbul once again forced President Erdogan to embrace the imprisoned PKK leader to use his influence over Kurds. But it spectacularly backfired.

PKK’s founder and honorary leader Abdullah Ocalan (L) serves his life sentence in Imrali, a prison island in the Marmara Sea.

For months preceding the March 31 municipal elections, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his underlings ceaselessly accused the main opposition mayoral candidate Ekrem Imamoglu of having ties to outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The affiliation charges were directed against the CHP candidate for just harboring positive feelings toward Selahattin Demirtas, the imprisoned former co-chair of pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP). In the eyes of the president and his ruling party, that was enough to label Imamoglu a “terrorist lover.”

Not long after that, and only several days before the critical re-run of the Istanbul vote this Sunday, the president came up with a move that apparently smacked of desperation. Desperate to win Istanbul amid poor poll results foretelling a possible defeat for a second time, President Erdogan summoned help from the most unlikely figure — jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan (APO) — to invoke his influence over Kurds in Istanbul vote. The pace of twists and turns in Erdogan’s discourse and politics baffled any casual…