Survey: 70 Percent of People in Kurdish-Majority Cities Against Mayor Dismissals

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Around 70 percent of the people in the mostly Kurdish-populated eastern and southeastern provinces do not support the government's move to dismiss elected mayors and replace them with trustees, according to a survey.

The Ministry of Interior has taken over 28 district and city municipalities from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) since the local elections in March.

The survey was conducted by the Socio-Political Field Research Center (Sosyo Politik Saha Araştırmaları Merkezi) with 5,100 participants from ten provinces: Diyarbakır, Mardin, Batman, Van, Siirt, Muş, Iğdır, Kars, Şırnak and Hakkari.

When asked whether they support the appointment of trustees to the municipalities, 69.9 percent said "no." While 16 percent supported the move, 13.1 percent said they were undecided.

Participants were also asked whether the replacement of mayors changed their political choices. 57.14 percent of the participants said it did not affect their political choice, 31.8 percent said their support increased for the party they voted for, 6.85 said they decided not to vote for any party, and 4.21 percent said they decided to vote for another party than they voted for.

Almost 80 percent of the participants said they would support if "city, district, women, youth and child councils" were involved in the decision-making process of the local administrations.

However, when asked about if they are able to receive information about the services of the municipality, 68 of the participants said "no." Among those who said they were able to receive information from the municipality, 46.4 percent stated they reach information through the internet. (RT/VK)