HDP-led alliance will not run in the presidential race

ANKARA

The Labor and Freedom Alliance, led by the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) announced that they will not appoint their own candidate for the presidential elections with signals that their support will go to Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the joint candidate of the six-party Nation Alliance.

“We will fulfill our historical responsibility. We declare that we won’t nominate anybody for the presidential polls,” co-chairwoman of the HDP, Pervin Buldan, told a press event following the meeting of the Labor and Freedom Alliance.

Türkiye will go to simultaneous presidential and parliamentary polls on May 14 and the two main contenders will be Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kılıçdaroğlu and President and Chairman of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

A candidate should garner 50 percent plus one vote to be elected in the first round of the presidential elections. The HDP-led alliance aims to unseat Erdoğan in the first round by supporting Kılıçdaroğlu. The HDP has around 10 percent of votes, but it may rise a few points when it races in the polls as the alliance.

“What Türkiye needs is common sense, and not conflict. It needs to produce lasting, realistic and inclusive solutions to the country’s social and political problems,” Buldan said. The alliance statement came only a few days after Kılıçdaroğlu held a meeting with Buldan and co-chair of the HDP Mithat Sancar at the Parliament.

It is expected that the alliance will vote for Kılıçdaroğlu for president.

High court rejects HDP’s appeal

In the meantime, the Constitutional Court on March 22 rejected an appeal by the HDP to leave the continued closure case against the party to the post-election period. The court will hear the verbal defense of the HDP on April 11 and appoint a rapporteur to prepare his or her report on the closure case.

The HDP is at risk of being banned with its more than 500 officials prohibited from politics in line with an indictment by the chief prosecutor who accuses the HDP of having links to the PKK, a terror organization.