Fırat was elected co-mayor of the Hınıs district in Erzurum in the March 2014 local elections on the ticket of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). A grandson of Sheikh Said, who led a Kurdish uprising and was executed by Turkish authorities in 1925, Fırat had been active in Kurdish politics since the 1990s. Since the 2024 local elections the practice has increasingly targeted municipalities run by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). Several municipalities won by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), including in the southeastern provinces of Van, Hakkari, Siirt, Batman and Tunceli, have also been included under trustee administration. Rights groups and opposition parties have criticized the practice for overriding voters’ choices and undermining local democracy.