The new year has arrived, the date is 2023, the general elections are just around the corner…

Erdogan is preparing to enter the most difficult election of his political career.

That Erdogan, described to date as someone who would “win even if he participated in The Voice Turkey,” the man who has always won for 25 years, is set to lose in the “natural flow of life” is certain.

If all the polling companies are not lying, a joint candidate with the full support of the Labor and Freedom Alliance, will push Erdogan off the stage of history.

The victories of the 2019 local elections and the unified mind and struggle displayed then were, of course, the harbingers of today.

Well then, why is it that we do not feel at ease?

Because Erdogan routinely intervenes in the “natural flow of life” and will only continue to do so.

Backing Imamoglu into a corner, appointing trustees to the Metropolitan Municipalities, and other such detestable plans have already been put into motion. As we shall see, much can change from now until the elections. We will talk…

The talk of this week, before the closure case of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), is the confiscation of all the HDP’s money in the bank and the 540 million Turkish Liras of treasury aid which was set to flow in this year. As we know, on December 19 Chief Public Prosecutor of the Court of Cassation Bekir Sahin applied to the Supreme Court and requested that the HDP bank accounts holding their treasury aid to be “immediately put on hold” on the basis that “the organic connection between the HDP and terrorist organization will continue during the case proceedings.” The trial is set to be held on January 10. We shall wait and see.

For now, it seems as though the HDP will enter the election season without money and without a party, with all of its familiar actors hit with political bans, beaten and battered, suffering under the oppression of the police and the courts.

Erdogan's entire plan revolves around attacking the Kurdish electorate, with the full force of the state behind him, at a time when they will feel reluctant, resentful, and isolated in order to weaken the will of the HDP voter base and to distance them from the ballot box.

Let me put it this way; the forecast is similar according to all the recent surveys. For example, the MetroPOLL Company’s last public polling shows:

After undecided voters have been distributed, percentage of votes for each party

• 36.9% for the Justice and Development Party (AKP)
• 24.7% for the Republican People’s Party (CHP)
• 12.5% for the Good Party
• 11.2% for the People’s Democratic Party (HDP)
• 7.3% for the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)
• 2% for the Victory Party
• 1.3% for the New Welfare Party
• 4.2% for Other

In other words, a conscious electorate of 10 to 15% who have no money and no party, and whose familiar actors have all been hit with political bans, and who are being crushed under the oppression of the police and the courts will determine the outcome of these elections in which the presidency and parliament hangs in the balance.

The “Table of Six” needs to develop a very precise discourse in this period of time.

It is imperative that the rights be restored of the HDP electorate who supported candidates from other parties in the 2019 municipality elections, who did not nominate a candidate, who passed out flyers in the streets, and who made the victory “a triumph for all.” The only way to win is for the Table of Six to get closer to this group which will carry them to power. Is it possible to recognize the HDP’s right to engage in politics, to offer to make room in the lists of the Table of Six for HDP candidates, to organize joint rallies, to visit imprisoned politicians, and to convey their greetings to the people in the public squares?

It is…

Is Ekrem Bey’s mayorship any different to Selcuk Bey’s situation?

Considering that we will make a return to democratic practices in a post-Erdogan Turkey, is it possible, for example, to want — and to even promise — that Selcuk Mizrakli is reinstated in his position as Diyarbakir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor?

It is…

And is this not how it should be?

Is this not how we won the 2019 municipality elections?

Erdogan is about to lose this election. No matter what he does, he is about to lose.

The real question is how brave we all can be to win.

Come on, now…

*Hayko Bagdat was born in Istanbul in 1976, as the fourth child of an ethnic Greek mother and an Armenian father. After attending the Armenian schools Esayan and Mkhitaryan, he began studying history at Istanbul University in 1994. Due to the unexpected death of his father, he was unable to complete his studies. He began his journalism career in 2002 with a program on a radio station covering minority issues for the first time in Turkey, and worked as a journalist, columnist and commentator for Turkey's mainstream media. In 2007, Bagdat was among the founders of the "Friends of Hrant" group, which was formed after the murder of journalist Hrant Dink and that continues its search for justice. Bagdat's first book on being an Armenian and 'the other' in Turkey, Salyangoz (Snail) was published in 2014, his second book, Gollik, in 2015, and his third book, Kurtulus Cok Bozuldu, in 2016. His one-man stage performance "Salyangoz," based on his book, thrilled audiences in many cities in Turkey in 2016 and was subsequently acclaimed with tours all over the world. In 2017, Bagdat moved to Germany and continues to work as a journalist and producer in Berlin.