Professional-Kurdish occasion chief Sancar says HDP would possibly again the opposition presidential candidate in the event that they agreed on ‘basic rules’.
Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Get together (HDP) might help principal opposition chief Kemal Kilicdaroglu on this 12 months’s presidential election after “clear, open talks”.
“Our clear expectation is a transition for a robust democracy. If we will agree on basic rules, we might help him in presidential elections,” occasion co-leader Mithat Sancar mentioned on Monday.
Social democrat Republican Folks’s Get together (CHP) chief Kilicdaroglu emerged on Monday as the primary challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan forward of the elections, anticipated to happen on Might 14, after a six-party alliance picked him as its candidate.
Kilicdaroglu, 74, head of the nation’s second-biggest occasion after Erdogan’s Justice and Growth Get together (AK Get together), goals to take away the president from his seat after a two-decade reign.
The HDP, Turkey’s third-biggest occasion with 11.7 p.c votes within the 2018 elections, shouldn’t be a part of the alliance.
Nevertheless, in 2019, its primarily Kurdish supporters helped the alliance – which it was a part of then – win mayoral elections in Istanbul, Ankara and different cities.
Sancar had referred to as on the opposition to unite on Saturday, a day after the alliance splintered over who ought to run for president earlier than reaching a consensus on Monday.
Polls counsel that Kilicdaroglu’s Nation Alliance will want HDP voters’ backing to unseat Erdogan and win a majority in parliament in opposition to his AK Get together and its ultranationalist ally, the Nationalist Actions Get together (MHP).
For years, HDP has confronted an AK Get together authorities crackdown and doable ban over alleged ties to the Kurdistan Staff’ Get together (PKK), an armed Kurdish group, which it denies.
In January, its financial institution accounts had been frozen by a courtroom, chopping its monetary lifeline earlier than the upcoming election.
The PKK, designated a “terrorist group” by Ankara and its NATO allies, has fought the Turkish state in primarily Kurdish southeast Turkey since 1984 by which greater than 40,000 folks have been killed.