Erkan Bas: Bosniak Migrants’ Son Eyes Leading Revived Turkish Left

“The man is Tito’s scrap. There was a communist regime in Yugoslavia like the Soviets … He was raised in leftist groups under control of German intelligence and sent to Turkey. His real surname is Jusovic but he’s using another one here,” Mustafa Destici, leader of the Great Unity Party, BBP, an ultra-nationalist ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said in a TV interview on April 11.

The man Destici was referring to as “Tito’s scrap” – referencing the former communist leader of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz Tito – is rising Turkish political star Erkan Bas, President of the Workers’ Party of Turkey, TIP.

Bas and members of Balkan diaspora groups condemned Destici’s statements. “I am not the issue here. Millions of Yugoslav migrants in our country are insulted … This is racism,” Bas responded on Twitter on April 12.

Destici was trying to discredit Bas by using his family background ahead of highly critical general and presidential elections on May 14, in which Erdogan faces his stiffest-ever challenge after more than two decades in power.