Selahattin Demirtas

The years 2014-2015 witnessed the shining birth and death of a star in the political horizon, a young and bright name from the Kurdish neighborhood. A politician who had studied law, had humor, could communicate to people outside of his own community... We are talking about the kind of person that could make an old man from the Black Sea region, who had previously never felt affinity for the Kurdish political movement, say, "I could vote for this guy."

Selahattin Demirtas had a potential following in not just the Southeast, but in Western and Southern Turkey, and even in the North and central Anatolia. Young politicians who inspire hope in people seldom appear in this land. Demirtas has an element for that kind of hope in his fabric. That's why his star shone so bright. The brightness of his potential was proven by the amount of votes his personality won his party, a percentage that the political movement that he came from could never dream of. We first saw that in the August 2014 presidential elections, in which he ran as his party's presidential candidate. The million increase in votes since the March 2014 elections showed just how much trust people put in him. HDP doubled its vote in Istanbul and Izmir, and tripled it in Ankara. If the AK Party lost majority government for the first time in its history in the June 2015 elections, that was because the HDP passed the 10 percent electoral threshold, and it was "the Demirtas factor" that enabled it.

Those votes could have increased even further in time, and that star could have shone brighter, because the Turkish political opposition had the requisite vacuum, and Demirtas possessed the requisite youth and potential. In Turkey, a politician's Kurdishness does not keep people from walking behind him. Turkish voters pay attention to what one says, rather than who one is. So why did this star stop shining, and eventually die? Because politics is about showing courage when the going gets tough. What he does and doesn't do in these difficult times is what makes a leader. That's where Selahattin Demirtas failed. He failed to show the same courage that he seemed to have in criticizing politicians in Ankara against the actors in Qandil, where the PKK leadership resides, who he knew very well to be poisoning the peace process.

If he had managed to show courage for peace and deweaponization of the conflict and raise his voice, he could have become one of the catalyzers of the Turkish-Kurdish peace - if not at that moment, then in the long run. Even keeping silent in the face of Qandil's pressures would be a move that part of the public would understand, sustaining their hope for him. But Selahattin Demirtas even failed to do what Leyla Zana has done. He started to repeat the demands of the armed wing of the Kurdish movement as if those were his own view, accepting the role of the implementer. That's what brought his end.It was, after all, obvious that Qandil men like Cemil Bayik and Murat Karayilan were extra-historical actors that belonged in four decades ago in Turkey's history. They represented the past, while Demirtas represented the future. That was the meaning of the trust shown in him in both the west and the east of the country. That was the people's message. Demirtas undoubtedly got it, but he lacked the courage to act on it. The first thing to be buried in those ditches ordered by Qandil was Selahattin Demirtas' charisma, and the hope he had awakened in part of the public. He wasted both his own potential, and any hope for Turkish politics that awaited new and young politicians.

Those who know the nature of the relationship between Kurdish politics and Qandil might think that these words are unfair to Demirtas, and that he could have never wielded such power. They may be right. But if that was the case, then he should have never awaken that hope in the public. The people, after all, put their trust in Demirtas himself, not Ocalan in Imrali, nor the PKK in Qandil. At the time of this writing, Selahattin Demirtas is in prison. Voters in Turkey have always had sympathy for unfairly imprisoned, wronged politicians. Selahattin Demirtas may very well become an exception to that rule.