After the DEM Party's landslide victory in the local elections on 31 March 2024 in North Kurdistan, the state is looking for reasons to depose co-mayors and replace them with trustees. To do this, long-delayed files are being brought out of the basements of the judiciary. 

On Friday, the AKP-MHP regime usurped the municipality of Bahçesaray district in Van province after co-mayor Ayvaz Hazır was sentenced to 3 years and 11 months in prison for ‘committing crime on behalf of an illegal organisation without being a member of an illegal organisation’.

According to reports, the democratically elected but unlawfully ousted co-mayors Ayvaz Hazır and Nebahat Benek were replaced by the district governor, Harun Arslanargun.

With the deposition in Bahçesaray, the number of municipalities usurped in Turkey has risen to eight.

The municipality of Hakkari was usurped by the government immediately after the local elections on 31 March.

Ahmet Özer, the CHP mayor of Esenyurt, the most populous district of Istanbul, was removed from office and imprisoned on 31 October. He was replaced by Istanbul Deputy Governor Can Aksoy.

The DEM Party municipalities of Batman, Mardin and Halfeti were usurped on 4 November.

On November 22, the municipality of Dersim under the DEM Party and the municipality of Ovacık district were usurped by the AKP-MHP regime by appointing trustees in the place of the democratically elected mayors who had been sentenced to prison two days ago. Dersim Co-Mayor Cevdet Konak and Ovacık Mayor Mustafa Sarıgül were sentenced to 6 years and 3 months imprisonment each in the lawsuit filed 10 years ago for alleged ‘membership in an illegal organisation’. 

On 25 November, Birsen Orhan, the deposed co-mayor of Dersim, was placed under house arrest and banned from leaving the country.