Imprisoned Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas assessed today that the pro-Kurdish HDP party should back a single opposition candidate against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the presidential elections to be held in May in Turkey.

In a written interview with AFP, Demirtas said the six-party opposition coalition should “reach out” to the People’s Republic Party, of which he co-founded and co-chaired.
Today, Demirtas is being held in a prison in Adrianople on charges of terrorism.

The HDP, the third largest party in parliament, is not part of the six-party coalition, mainly due to the presence of Meral Aksener’s nationalist Good Party (Iyi).

HDP co-chairman and Istanbul MP ​​Pervin Buldan announced in early January that the party intended to field its own candidate in the presidential election. But Demirtas, who himself was a candidate against Erdogan twice – most recently in 2018, when he was already in prison – supports the idea of ​​a single, single candidacy, although “at this stage it seems likely that the HDP will nominate its own candidate,” admitted he.

“I am in favor of a common candidate if the candidate chosen by the P6 reaches some kind of compromise with the HDP. But it doesn’t depend on me or HDP. We can only achieve this if Table Six takes steps in this direction,” added Demirtas, who turns 50 in April.

The authorities are threatening the HDP with a ban that accuses it of links to the PKK. If this happens, Selahattin Demirtas said that “HDP voters will not be left without a choice, without a party.” “We are ready,” he assured.

In early January, the judiciary decided to cut off state funding for the party. Other pro-Kurdish parties have also been outlawed in the past.

In the 2018 parliamentary elections, the HDP won 12% and elected 56 deputies (out of 579). Thousands of his supporters and dozens of elected officials, mostly in the southeastern provinces, where the majority of the inhabitants are of Kurdish origin, have been imprisoned or accused of supporting terrorism or endangering national security. They all deny the accusations, citing political persecution.

Selahattin Demirtas was arrested in 2016 and has been in detention ever since, despite requests from the European Court of Human Rights for his release. He was convicted in 2018 but still faces several charges that could lead to a prison sentence of up to 142 years. He himself does not count on a possible amnesty, declaring that “he is not guilty of anything and therefore will not apologize.”

“I never expected mercy from anyone, let alone Erdogan. I have to forgive him, he is guilty,” he wrote to AFP. He also states that he is convinced that “Erdogan and the handful of people around him will be defeated. Democracy will surely win: this mentality of a strong man, a racist, a nationalist will disappear.”

Source: APE-MPE-AFP.