The reasons of People's Republi̇can Party losing social ground in Southeastern Anatoli̇a Region (1990-2011): The case study of Diyarbakır, Mardin and Gaziantep

People' Republican Party is the oldest political party in Turkey. As expected, PRP has been affected both the politics of the country and the structural transformation of the political parties. It is observed that PRP started to lose electoral support and continue to lose in Southeastern Anatolian Region in where mainly Kurdish voters live although PRP had been supported before 1980s and at the beginning 1990s in that region. In this research, the sociological reasons of losing social and political support of PRP in the Southeastern Anatolia Region have been searched. This field research was conducted in three provinces namely Diyarbakır, Gaziantep and Mardin. Research question aimed to understand the perspectives of both the still active members and ex-active members of the party. During the field research, fifty-six in-depth interviews were conducted. The research findings reveal these following findings: The politics of PRP has nationalistic tendency as a result of increasing impacts of cultural issues in the politics. Secondly, the impact of the 'one-man' leadership of Deniz Baykal lasted twenty years resulted the lack of both democracy and oppositional positions in the party itself. Thirdly, the insistence of the PRP' preferences on traditional political paradigm is against the increasing request of cultural and identity issues at both local and global levels. The historical mission of PRP has strong influence on the voters' support. Yet the influence on voters created by social democratic policies named the 'middle of the left' politics has passed beyond that. Following 1990s, the discourse and the politics of PRP shaped by emphasis of security and the nation state has caused the loss of Kurdish voters.