HDP: Davutoğlu’s election manifesto aims to win votes for Erdoğan, not himself

“If you had done anything over the last 13 years, why are you pledging these to the public right now?” HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş said when he was reminded of Davutoğlu’s call. 

“You would think they are going into the elections for the first time. As if they haven’t been in government for the last 13 years, they say ‘We are going to change the constitution, we will bring freedom, we will do this and that,’” Demirtaş said on April 16, speaking to reporters in Diyarbakır.

“But there is only one thing that is new in the manifesto: The presidential system. They have been saying the exact same things for the last 13 years. They say they will do it in 2023. Do these people have to carry you on their shoulders until 2023? They have sung the same chorus for the last 13 years, wheeling out anything old as something new. The only thing that is new is the presidential system. Mr. Ahmet Davutoğlu is basically saying, ‘Vote for me, and someone else will rule the country’,” he added.

“If Turkey is to convert to a presidential system, and if the AKP is pledging this, there is no reason for them to pledge anything else, because the government will not exist once the presidential system is initiated. So all those pledges will come to nothing. Mr. Ahmet Davutoğlu is therefore conducting a self-denying election manifesto and campaign and he isn’t even aware of it. Why are you undertaking the manifesto that says, ‘We will elect a president’? It should be Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who comes out and undertakes that manifesto,” added Demirtaş. 

“On one hand the government will be the owner of this manifesto and on the other hand they want to say ‘We will switch to the presidential system, so what is written in this manifesto is all nonsense.’ They are not even aware of what they are doing. This country does not deserve a government, a ruling party and a prime minister like this.

On June 7, as the HDP, we will come up with a result that our people deserve,” the HDP co-chair also said.