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From our special correspondent in Diyarbakir, Turkey – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s alliance with Huda-Par, a hardline Kurdish Islamist party with a shadowy past, for the 2023 vote sparked howls of condemnations. It was part of a strategy to win the Kurdish vote, but women fear that they will pay the price.
As the sun dipped into the Bosphorus Strait dividing Istanbul’s European and Asian sides just days before Turkey held a presidential runoff, Zainab Bilgin explained what was at stake for women in the 2023 vote.
“Religion is dominating politics in this country and this election can change women’s lives and rights,” she declared. “Huda-Par is making public statements that women should not vote, that all women should be married before the age of 30 years. Huda-Par is very powerful and I am very worried,” she said, referring to a fringe Turkish Islamist party.
Bilgin was so afraid of publicly voicing her fears, she asked for her name to be changed and only agreed to be filmed with her back to the camera.
Days later, in the Kurdish stronghold of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, a woman approached FRANCE 24 at a polling station after casting her vote in the May 28 runoff between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his secular rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
“This is the women’s last vote,” she said slowly and emphatically in English. “Maybe we will lose our voting rights. They will change everything. We will be like Iran because of Huda-Par.”
That night, not long after Erdogan vowed in his victory speech “to be here until I’m in my grave”, the middle-aged woman at the polling station kept calling and texting to…
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Source : france24
