The deadly politics behind Turkey’s worst ever terrorist attack

The twin bomb blasts that tore through a peace rally in the Turkish capital, killing at least 95 people, are being described as the deadliest attack in the history of modern Turkey.

The bombings on Saturday targeted a gathering organised in part by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), one of the country’s leading opposition parties, just weeks before a new round of national elections are scheduled to be held.

It’s unclear at present who is behind the suspected suicide attack, but the bloodshed is bound to exacerbate tensions in Turkey, which has experienced a deepening and deadly polarisation since elections in June failed to produce a stable government.

The HDP is a leftist, largely Kurdish party that emerged only in recent years. In June, it scored a stunning electoral victory, winning more than 10 percent of the vote - in Turkish politics the threshold a party needs to cross to gain a bloc of seats in parliament. The HDP’s success was a huge blow to the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002.

Critics of Erdogan say the Turkish president and his ruling party have stoked the tensions for political gain, hoping that deepening anti-Kurdish sentiment would undermine the HDP in new elections. It’s a charge angrily dismissed by the Turkish government. Whatever the case, current surveys suggest the HDP will retain its level of support, and perhaps gain more in the November 1 elections.

The question then is: What will Erdogan do? The June election was seen as a referendum on his ambitions for further power. Erdogan, who had served as prime minister from 2003 to 2014, sought a parliamentary super-majority so he could change Turkey’s constitution and usher in a presidential system in which his office would be endowed with greater executive powers.