Main opposition CHP rules out forming election alliance with HDP

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

The HDP in fact was formed as an umbrella party, encircling BDP and some leftist parties after the suggestion made from the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party. AA photo

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Istanbul provincial head Oğuz Kaan Salıcı has strictly ruled out any prospective alliance with the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) in the upcoming local elections.

“We are not bargaining [for an alliance] with HDP or any other parties for the local elections. We will not seek any collaboration with any party,” Salıcı told the Hürriyet Daily News over a telephone conversation on Nov. 21.

News reports in three separate newspapers on Nov. 21 suggested the CHP and HDP are conducting secret talks for an alliance in Istanbul in the March 2014 local elections.

HDP deputy Sırrı Süreyya Önder, in a televised interview aired on Nov. 17 announced his candidacy for his party’s nomination for the Istanbul mayoralty in upcoming local elections.

However, Önder’s public popularity, as one of the deputies most involved in the summer’s Gezi park protests, having personally stopped bulldozers from cutting down trees, during the initial demonstrations in the park before they spread across the country, led some columnists to strongly suggest the formation of an alliance between the CHP and HDP in Istanbul in order to defeat the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Önder voiced his strict objection to the idea during the Nov. 17 interview; nevertheless, he said his party was still open to “principal” collaboration with anyone who has not committed a crime against the city.

HDP candidates for four district mayoralties in Istanbul should be nominated as CHP candidates in exchange for Önder’s withdrawal from candidacy, the HDP demanded from the CHP according to yesterday’s news reports.

The CHP will determine its local election candidates to get support from all parts of society, but it is impossible for them to form an alliance with any party, Salıcı said. “If they [the HDP] are aiming to seek an alliance with us for local elections, they should come and meet us instead of making it public via the media. And we would tell them it’s impossible,” Salıcı said.

Sources from the CHP administration approached by the Daily News denied there have been talks with the HDP for a local elections alliance, nevertheless, they did not rule out any prospective collaboration with the HDP.

“Low level” meetings to discuss a possible collaboration were conducted by representatives of the HDP and CHP, however, no one from the administration level of the CHP was involved in those meetings, CHP sources told the Daily News on the condition of anonymity.

“I don’t deem it possible that the CHP would seek alliance with any party,” CHP’s deputy parliamentary group chair Muharrem İnce said at a press conference yesterday, declining to deny reports with a sharp expression.

“The CHP will run with its own candidates in every electorate,” the CHP spokesperson Haluk Koç said in an interview with the private news channel NTV on the same day.

Selahattin Demirtaş, co-leader of the HDP’s sister party the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), said there has not been any “official or unofficial talks” between the HDP and the CHP for collaboration in local elections, but such talks may possibly be held in the upcoming days.

“But this should not be a secret [alliance] discussed behind closed doors. Its principles should be determined and be announced to the public,” Demirtaş told reporters in Diyarbakır.

HDP, for its part, announced via its Twitter account, “they have no information over HDP-CHP alliance efforts.”

The HDP in fact was formed as an umbrella party, encircling BDP and some leftist parties after the suggestion made from the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Abdullah Öcalan.

The idea of forming an alliance between the CHP and the HDP, while government is having secret talks with Öcalan as part of peace process would be unrealistic, according to another CHP source who spoke to the HDN.