HDP co-chairs won’t rerun for leadership

ANKARA

The co-chairs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar, have announced that they will not rerun for the party leadership at the first HDP congress after the elections as they have not reached the targeted success in the May 14 polls.

Their announcement came a week after the party’s former co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş decided to quite active politics. Demirtaş is behind bars due to his alleged links to the terrorist organization, the PKK, since 2016.

The HDP, which entered the election under the Green Left Party (YSP) lists, will be represented as the “Green Left Group” in the parliament until the closure case against the HDP is concluded.

The HDP decided to conduct the congress earlier than it was previously scheduled.

Buldan and Sancar stated that they would not be candidates for co-leader positions at the congress, citing that they did not manage a successful campaign process regarding the May 14 elections.

“Even though we did not perceive the election result as a defeat for HDP, we could not reach the circle outside of us. We could not expand. We could not convey the HDP idea to all segments,” Buldan said.

“The absence of Armenian, Yazidi and disabled people’s representation in the parliament is a major defeat for us. We also prevented our provincial and district organization from being involved in the nomination process,” she said.

For his part, Sancar also said the party’s organization was insufficient in establishing direct and continuous relations with the public.

Sancar noted that he and Buldan want to pave the way for all the members of the party to carry out the self-criticism process.