“I will vote Erdogan forever. He will win», says a veiled lady to one of the policemen who is asking us for our documents for the fourth time. “Normal checks,” says the agent. But for thirty minutes we are stuck in this small school in Cermik, in Turkish Kurdistan, where the majority votes for the Sultan.
On election day that could change the future of Turkey and the Kurdish people, delegations of independent observers from all over the world leave Diyarbakir for cities where the OSCE is not present.
Our journey is together with one of the two Italians, the one led by the deputy of the Italian Left Mark Grimaldi. The second, led by the honorable Laura Boldrini, is destined elsewhere. Both are accompanied by lawyers, because in this climate any imposition of the agents accepted is a blow to the right to have an election without fraud or intimidation.
The police inform the deputy Marco Grimaldi that he cannot enter the next polling stations
The direction is that of the mountains, the first stop is in Ergani, an industrial district of 109,000 inhabitants, still administered by the HDP. A political formation that has been in danger of closure for years – and whose political leader Alahassettin Demirtaş has been in prison since 2016 – because the government has biasedly accused it of ties to the PKK, the Kurdish workers’ party that Ankara considers a terrorist organization.
The controls are there too. The police ask for the documents and press card that all foreign journalists must ask the Turkish government to be able to work in the country.
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Inside the polling station to take photos and videos you have to haggle a bit, but then there’s the green light to shoot in the corridors. It is a coming and going of people. From the outside you can see the transparent ballot boxes already full in the early morning, as will all those viewed in the polling stations further on. At the exit the police approach again: “This delegation is not on the list, from now on only journalists can enter”.
The lawyer, a 29-year-old human rights expert, is ordered to try but not to insist to avoid problems and so the next stage, the one in which we are stopped, asks Mr Grimaldi and the other delegates not to enter.
Outside the seat of Cungus a man raises two fingers to the sky: a symbolic gesture of the pro-Kurdish party Yesil Sol Parti
In the Cermik school we are followed step by step by the police and the lawyer, here yes, does not back down on the ban on filming or taking pictures. Outside, a small group of agents awaits us, he asks for documents even from those who have not entered the polling station. “What are you looking at?” an officer says to some men. “These people are our guests. I am the list representative of the CHP», replies one. “And I from Yesil Sol Parti,” says the other.
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The tones light up and for a moment the situation seems to escalate. But it all comes back shortly after, when tempers melt while sipping a glass of çay.
We understand that we are advancing into territories militarized by the presence of the military and the gendarmerie. But it is here, in these small mountain villages, where families arrive to vote in sidecars, that the atmosphere is more relaxed.
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We are able to enter Cungus and Oyukulo freely, we just need to shake hands with the list representatives waiting for us outside. The observers also enter and we talk to the scrutineers and here too the turnout was very high and among the people outside there are those who stop to talk to us.
A couple of Cungus just out of the polling station
“Foreigners?” shouts a woman as her husband stops the sidecar in which they travel among cows and sheep. “We voted for Kılıçdaroğlu”, they say proudly holding up their two fingers, the party’s symbol. “He will win.” Everyone here is in suspense. Hope is still alive, the horns are still ringing.