As Turkey’s national election nears, President Erdogan is tightening his grip over the country’s institutions and is systematically removing troublesome pieces from the political chessboard. The Kurds are emerging as one of his most prominent targets. 

The head of the Turkish Medical Association, Sebnem Korur Fincanci, was sentenced Wednesday to more than two years in prison on a sham charge of spreading propaganda on behalf of a Kurdish terrorist group. Dr. Fincanci’s sentence is only the latest court decision that smacks of being a part of Mr. Erdogan’s presidential campaign. Last month, the president’s  toughest opponent, Ekrem Imamoglu, Istanbul’s mayor, was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison and was banned from politics to boot. His crime: calling election officials “fools.”

It remains to be seen whether the sentence against Mr. Imamoglu will indeed end his political aspirations or, conversely, increase his public appeal. Meanwhile, Mr. Erdogan’s move against Dr. Fincanci looks to be part of an attack on the critical Kurdish voting bloc.  

Dr. Fincanci, a forensic specialist, is a high-profile human rights advocate. She was arrested in October after urging an investigation into allegations that Turkey has used chemical arms in northern Iraq as part of its war against militants of the Kurdistan Working Party, or PKK. 

What followed was a well-orchestrated slew of attacks against Dr. Fincanci on Turkey’s news outlets, which are increasingly subservient to the government. Designated as a terrorist organization in Turkey, America, and Europe, the PKK is often used by Turkish nationalists as bogeyman, and is lumped in with all of the country’s Kurds.

Attacks against anyone showing sympathies toward Kurds are “part of a larger scheme of generating support for Erdogan,” the president of the Washington-based American Kurdish Information Network, Kani Xulam, said. “Erdogan and his ilk are throwing as much mud as they can and trying to make it stick,” he told the Sun. 

Entering a crucial election year, Kurdish parties have emerged on Turkey’s complex political map as potential kingmakers. Earlier in his presidency, Mr. Erdogan tried to woo the country’s Kurds. No longer: “He wants the Kurdish parties to be his busboy, but they have become the waiter,” Mr. Xulam said. 

According to polls, Mr. Erdogan’s supporters and opponents are nearly tied at a little less than 40 percent of the voters. Comprising more than 10 percent of the electorate, Kurdish parties can, therefore, decide the next presidency. Yet Mr. Erdogan can no longer appeal to the Kurdish parties; his ultranationalist supporters may desert him if he shows any sign of sympathy to the hated Kurds. 

“Erdogan knows he’s not going to get the Kurdish parties’ vote, so he’s trying to make it difficult for them,” a New York-based reporter for Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper, Razi Cankligil, told the Sun. 

Last week an Ankara court blocked funds to the third-largest faction in parliament, the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP. As in judicial attacks against Dr. Fincanci and Mayor Imamoglu, the decision against the Kurdish party smacked of politics. It will “go down as a black mark in the history of the country’s democracy,” the party’s spokeswoman, Ebru Gunay, said. 

The Biden administration is also “gravely concerned by the continued judicial harassment of civil society, media, political and business leaders in Turkey, including through prolonged pretrial detention, overly broad claims of support for terrorism, and criminal insult cases,” the state department spokesman, Ned Price, said in a statement following Mr. Imamoglu’s sentencing. 

In addition to Mr. Erdogan’s assault against democratic institutions, Turks are suffering economic hardships that could turn them against the longtime president. Inflation remains high even after it was lowered to nearly 65 percent in December from 85 percent in November, and as the election nears the government is attempting to offset these hardships by subsidizing food staples and other necessities to the poor. 

The country’s opposition has made many mistakes, a Marine Corps University professor who is a Turkey watcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Sinan Ciddi, told the Sun. “They assumed that because of the economic situation Erdogan would be voted out,” yet they remain divided and are being “held hostage by small parties.”

Mr. Ciddi said that despite the court’s ban on Mr. Imamoglu’s political activities, the opposition’s best bet is to coalesce around the mayor’s presidential candidacy. The young, charismatic, and politically astute politician won the Istanbul election in a landslide in 2019 — in part because of Kurdish support.

A similarly convincing presidential victory in June could force the court to reverse the decision. Mr. Erdogan should know: He first won a national election in 2003, despite a court decision that banned his party from participating in politics. Yet he became prime minister — and has been in power ever since.