Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş called on other candidates such as fascist Meral Akşener and Islamist Temel Karamollaoğlu to support him at a possible second-round voting.
Jailed for a year and a half on security charges, the HDP’s former co-chair Demirtaş talked to BBC Turkish on May 7 and claimed that he and his HDP party are the sole left-wing candidate and alliance force at the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections despite leaving the door open to alliances with various right-wing leaders.
In answer to a question on the HDP’s stance if the presidential elections would be voted again at the second round on July 8 following the first one on June 24, Demirtaş said, “We can build a democratic administration and a fair system altogether if Mr İnce, Mrs Akşener and Mr Karamollaoğlu supports me at the second round,” giving green light to possible alliances with right-wing leaders for the presidential elections.
POSSIBLE ALLIANCE WITH FASCISTS AND ISLAMISTS
Demirtaş refers to Muharrem İnce, known with his fiery rhetoric and nationalistic views, the presidential candidate of the so-called secularist parliamentary main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) that has entered into an alliance for parliamentary elections with fascist İyi Party and Islamist Felicity Party.
Meral Akşener and Temel Karamollaoğlu are among the other presidential candidates whose support Demirtaş asked for a possible second-round voting. Former interior minister Akşener, known with her dark political background, split from the Nationalist Movement Party after it decided to support Erdoğan, and established the new ultra-nationalist İyi Party.
Karamollaoğlu, on the other hand, the presidential candidate of Islamist Felicity Party, is from the political Islamist tradition of former PM Necmettin Erbakan who was also the political forefather of Erdoğan and his fellows. Karamollaoğlu was the mayor of the Turkish province of Sivas in July 1993 when dozens of atheist and Alevi intellectuals were burnt to death at a hotel by Islamist gangs as he celebrated those murderers at that time.
“Until when both right-wing alliances will continue to ignore us,” Demirtaş asked, implying the ruling AKP party and fascist MHP party alliance and the alliance of CHP, İyi Party, Islamist Felicity Party and Democratic Party, and added, “I believe in dialogue and principled cooperation in politics for a solution.”
He covertly criticized presidential candidate Meral Akşener, the chair of ultra-nationalist İyi Party, for not offering any solutions to the basic problems of the country, adding that he has no prejudice against her whom he knew from the parliament.
Demirtaş said that his party’s door is open to everyone who does not ignore the HDP, adding that this approach also goes for the parliamentary main opposition Republican People’s Party.
“I hope we will experience a qualified electoral process that is beneficial for the society and reduces polarization. Of course, I will be in the prison cell while the candidates will be at squares. Although this leads to an injustice, I expect all the other candidates’ support at the second round,” Demirtaş noted.
Meanwhile, the HDP party had previously left the door open to a possible alliance between HDP and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP party. “I cannot say anything about what will be in the future. The upcoming process will primarily focus on the removal of blocked political channels,” HDP co-chair Pervin Buldan had told Sputnik Radio.
