It’s been one year since the co-mayors of Diyarbakir metropolitan municipality were stripped of their duties and a trustee was appointed as the new mayor. On the anniversary of the loss of Diyabakir municipality, DBP deputy chair responsible for local authorities Hediye Karaaslan wowed to take back the municipalities sooner or later.

Karaaslan also accused trustees of malpractices and fraud and said Turkish state seized the municipalities by force.

“In modern Turkey’s history, the municipalities were only seized by the administration of military coup. This is the first time that an elected mayor was replaced by a trustee by a civilian authority. It was hijack of the will of people. When the trustees were appointed, nor the personnel neither the members of the local council were able to enter the building” she said.

According to Karaaslan, the municipalities are administrated with two or three bureaucrats and there are no mechanisms to control the actions of trustees.

“How can this be legitimate, democratic? By no means these trustees are legitimate or democrat” she said.

Karaaslan stated that the municipalities has policy to serve the people of Diyarbakır and said “these trustees didn’t come to power because they were bidding to serve better to people. (…) Most of the big projects in the region was done by our mayors. People see this and they are questioning about what the trustee did.”

Karaaslan wowed to take back the municipalities from trustees sooner or later with these words: “… but in the end the will of people is always victorious. And sooner or later we will take back our municipalities and continue to work where we left from. We see that the municipalities, under heavy military and police presence and without people, don’t function. They thought they will manage to get what they couldn’t by appointment of trustee. But now what they have is only the municipality buildings. With our organization and strength, we will take back our municipalities.”

The Turkish government appointed trustees to 94 out of 103 municipalities of DBP. 94 co-mayors where arrested. 24 were later released under pending trial.