by Burak Akinci
ANKARA, June 13 (Xinhua) -- As Turkey is bracing for a re-run vote of Istanbul mayoral election, the ruling party is trying to gather support among Kurdish voters.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) candidate and former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim took his campaign to Turkey's southeastern city of Diyarbakir during the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday last week.
Yildirim made welcoming speeches towards the Kurdish population in a move aimed at wooing the Kurdish voters ahead of June 23 Istanbul vote, a re-run of March 31 local elections.
The AKP lost capital Ankara and other big cities that it held for nearly two decades to the opposition in the elections. Istanbul was also narrowly won by the opposition, but the result was annulled because of "electoral irregularities."
Mahmut Bozarslan, veteran journalist and political analyst based in Diyarbakir, said that "nothing has changed since the first vote and Kurdish voters are determined to vote again for Ekrem Imamoglu," the candidate of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).
The pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) has once again called on its electors to support the opposition candidate, whose mandate was revoked after the cancellation of the first vote.
Relations between the HDP and the AKP have not always been tense.
Starting in 2013, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government conducted talks with the pro-Kurdish party and Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), seen as a terrorist group by Turkey, to find a solution to Turkey's long-running Kurdish problem.
Negotiations broke down when a cease-fire collapsed amid fighting between the PKK and Turkish security forces in the summer of 2015.
Since then, the government has put severe pressure on the HDP, describing the party as the PKK's "political arm."
Istanbul has about 1.5 million voters of Kurdish origin and their choice is crucial in the making of the mayor of Turkey's biggest city and economic powerhouse.
Istanbul, which accounts for a third of the Turkish economy, has been a locomotive for Erdogan's leadership since he first came to power as prime minister in 2003.
The Ankara government has made some overtures towards the Kurdish community since the electoral authorities cancelled the result on May 6, such as allowing Ocalan to see his lawyers, for the first time in eight years.
The ruling party also introduced a judiciary reform bill to parliament, aiming for an independent, objective, accountable judiciary.
Turkey, which has not witnessed a significant TV election debate for many years, will see Yildirim and Imamoglu participating in a rare live event on Sunday evening, in a bid to lure more voters to support them.
"We are one in this country, Turks, Kurds and all the other communities that form our Turkey, so it is only natural that our candidate visits Diyarbakir," an AKP official told Xinhua.
The official insisted that Yildirim "will win the election because he is the candidate that speaks to the heart of all citizens, regardless of their origins."
Nevertheless, several polls conducted in recent weeks put Imamoglu ahead of Yildirim by two to four percentage points.
Aykan Erdemir, former lawmaker and now senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a U.S. think tank, told Xinhua that Erdogan "has altered his party's campaign rhetoric radically as part of an attempt to attract Istanbul's Kurdish voters.
However, it is difficult for Erdogan to persuade Turkey's pro-Kurdish voters as long as he continues his partnership with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), hostile to any Kurdish demands, Erdemir said.
"One of the unintended consequences of Erdogan's alliance with the MHP has been the emergence of Turkey's Kurdish voters as kingmakers," Erdemir said.
The expert added that "Kurdish voters have already cost Turkey's economic powerhouses on March 31, and have become a key constituency with the power to sway elections."
