The leftist pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) and its allies today called on Turkish citizens to vote for Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main rival of outgoing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the May 14 presidential election.
«For this historic election, we call on (...) the people of Turkey to vote for Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the presidential election,’ the Work and Freedom Alliance, led by the HDP, the third political force in Turkey, said in a statement.
The HDP had already offered its tacit support to Kilicdaroglu at the end of March by announcing that it would not run a candidate in the presidential elections.
«Our goals coincide (...). That is why we decided to support Kilicdaroglu,’ HDP co-chairman Mithat Sanchar also said in an interview published today by Sözcü newspaper.
The HDP's goal is for the opposition to win in the first round, Sanchar said.
«For the country to come out of this darkness, we have to get rid of this one-man rule,’ he added.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of an alliance involving six opposition parties, is well placed, according to most polls, to defeat outgoing President Erdogan.
The HDP, whose presidential candidate had come third in 2018, garnering 8.4% of the vote, is seen as the frontrunner in the presidential election.
The HDP is accused by the Turkish government of being linked to the Kurdistan Workers« Party (PKK), the Kurdish armed group labelled »terrorist" by Ankara and its Western allies.
Selahatin Demirtas, former co-chairman of the HDP and one of its most prominent members, has been imprisoned since 2016 for «terrorist propaganda».
Threatened with a ban, the pro-Kurdish party will run candidates in the parliamentary elections - also on 14 May - under the banner of the Green Left Party.
