HDP ready to play ‘direct or indirect role’ in coalition talks for Turkey’s sake

VAN

AA photo

Amid the uncertainty filling the country due to the absence of a new government more than one month after the June 7 parliamentary election, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has reiterated their party’s priority on solving crises, while voicing their readiness to play either “a direct or indirect role” in coalition talks for the sake of Turkey. 

“During the government formation process, if playing a role - whether direct or indirect - falls on our shoulders, we wouldn’t hesitate to fulfill this duty,” said HDP’s co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ on July 8, during a visit to a municipality of the eastern Anatolian province of Van, highlighting how the HDP has worked to solve crises, not create them. She also repeated the HDP hasn’t closed the door on any coalition options. 

According to Yüksekdağ, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been arguing between two options for a coalition government, which she cited as either the AKP with the Republican People’s Party (CHP) or the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

“Davutoğlu says that it is impossible with the HDP,” Yüksekdağ added. “Our only frontier is our principles and program. Those are peace, democracy and justice,” she said.

“While we are coming resolutely, the system parties, both those in power and not in power, are not acting like us towards us, - as intimate and problem-solving. We will fulfill whatever our people want within the frame of our principles and program,” Yüksekdağ said, labeling AKP and MHP politics as “red line politics.”

Back in mid-June, Yüksekdağ had clearly stated the HDP was open to all kinds of meetings aimed at forming a coalition government, after CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu outlined his party’s hopes of forming a coalition which would reflect the desires of “the 60 percent bloc,” effectively ruling out any governing alliance with the AKP.

“The AKP and the MHP are in crisis. The MHP acts with a conscious that is all abroad and needs to be plunged into the darkness in Turkey’s political history,” Yüksekdağ said in Van. 

“No one has the luxury to disregard the existence and power of the HDP. The HDP is the political center of today and tomorrow; you cannot change reality,” she said.