Turkey Elections: Ethnic Armenians to favor Kurd as presidential candidate

Turkey Elections: Ethnic Armenians to favor Kurd as presidential candidate –

Armenianow – In upcoming presidential elections in Turkey Armenians will probably support a Kurdish candidate, however some votes of the Armenian community will go to the current Prime Minister. 

On August 10, the first nationwide presidential elections will take place in Turkey and Justice and Development party president, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, also a joint representative of two big oppositional parties – Democratic-republican and National movement party joint candidate, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoğlu, as well as Kurdish forces representative, Democratic Party head Selahetdin Demirtas will participate in the elections.

According to turkologist Gevorg Petrosyan, the favorite to win in the elections will be PM Erdogan and his main competition will be Ihsanoglu, the turkologist does not consider Demirtashi as a serious candidate.

In Turkey, a country with a population of 77 million, 50-60,000 Armenian community will not form a serious factor, nevertheless, following the media we can assume that Demirtashi enjoys most popularity among the Armenian community, Erdogan also competes with him, because strong Armenian organizations, structures have close ties with the government.

“Generally we must mention the fact that during the Erdogan rule certain positive steps have been done in the Armenian community. Demirtas is a favorite for being a Kurd, he has built his political career on the basis of relationships with ethnic, religious minorities, and he also builds his election campaign on the basis of relations between Armenians and other ethnic minorities. 

Ihsanoglu is a new name, he is a new politician, and the political parties represented by him have anti-Armenian spirit, that’s why he will get less support from the Armenian community,” the turkologist said, adding that Erdogan refrains from speaking about Armenians, Armenia and Armenian Genocide, because his main electorate is formed of the middle class which is not positively positioned toward Armenia. According to Petrosyan, Ihsanoglu is a defender of Turkish denial policy; he speaks of Armenians only when asked, while Demirtas has based his campaign on the talk about Armenians and Armenian Genocide.

However, Petrosyan said that with the change of the government we should not expect much change, according to the turkologist, the state must undergo basic global changes, which would bring to the admission of the Genocide.