HDP co-chair Demirtaş says debate on presidency has ended with HDP passing threshold

ISTANBUL

DHA Photo

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has said the debate on the presidency has come to an end with his party passing the 10 percent election threshold, vowing not to allow President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan attain the new presidential system that he has been advocating. 

“As of this moment, the debate on the presidency, the debate about dictatorship, has come to an end in Turkey. Turkey has returned from the edge of a cliff,” Demirtaş said late on June 7 at the HDP’s provincial building in Istanbul, together with the party’s co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ. 

He stated that they would not form a coalition government with the Justice and Development Party (AKP), as they had promised throughout the campaign. 

“We will not form a coalition with the AKP, we stand behind our words. We will be in parliament as a strong opposition,” Demirtaş vowed. 

The HDP co-chair also said the results were a victory of “all the oppressed people,” no matter what their ethnic, religious or economic origins are. 

“Those who have sided with freedom, democracy and peace have won in this election. Those who have sided with oppression, authoritarianism, arrogance, and who see themselves as the only owners of Turkey, have lost,” Demirtaş said. 

He emphasized that the HDP had become a “party of Turkey” during this campaign. 

“As of now, the HDP is really a party of Turkey. Turkey is the HDP and the HDP is Turkey,” Demirtaş said, adding that AKP had been “zeroed” in Turkey’s eastern provinces with its claims that the Kurdish problem does not exist. 

Demirtaş said the election campaign had “not been fair” as all opposition parties had campaigned against a party, the AKP, that used the state’s resources. 

“We have conducted an election campaign that found ground in harsh, unequal and unjust conditions,” Demirtaş said. 

Meanwhile, speaking at the same press meeting in Istanbul, fellow HDP co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ said Turkey had moved beyond the politics of polarization. 

“The outdated policymaking of the past 12 years have not only damaged Turkish politics, but also Turkish society,” Yüksekdağ said.