Two large – electorally oriented – coalitions of political forces oppose each other, uniting only eleven gamesfive on the pro-government side and six on the opposition, ahead of the dual (parliamentary and presidential) elections to be held in Turkey May 14.

Line on one side People’s Alliance (Jumhur Ittifaki) from Recep Tayyip Erdogan And Devlet Bahcelii.e. Islamists Justice and Development Party (AKP) and his nationalists Nationalist Action Party (MHP), around which, however, three other smaller factions also coalesced:

• V nationalist Great Unity Party (BBP) of Mustafa Destiji
• V Nationalist/Islamist New/New Prosperity Party (YRP) of Fatih Erbakanson of Nejmetin Erbakan
• And Kurdish but conservative/Islamist Free Struggle Party (HÜDA PAR) of Zekeriya Yapizioglu

On the other hand, he takes a fighting stance alliance of the nation (Millet Ittifaki) of the “six” of the Turkish opposition, who joined forces in the hope of ending Erdogan’s 20-year rule. OUR Kemal Kilicdaroglu from Republican People’s Party (CHP), Meral Axener so-called good party (AI), Temel Karamolaoglu from Eudaimonia Party (Saadet), Gultekin Wisal from Democratic Party (DP), Ali Babajan from Party of Democracy and Progress (DEVA) And Ahmet Davutoglu his parties Future (He will come) are the “six” of the opposition, which are now openly opposing Mr. Erdogan and Bahceli.

common roots

Despite being rivals, the two “Alliances” have common “roots” and people with a common past. gentlemen Babajan And Davutoglu once they were Erdogan’s ministers. OUR Axener once he was on the side of Bahtseli, and also Mansour Javas, the current mayor of Ankara with CHP. OUR Temel Karamolaoglu Vthen sometimes next to Father Erbakan, and And Axener was Minister of Internal Affairs in his short-lived government Nechmetin Erbakan in the 1990s.

However, the electoral landscape is not limited to the aforementioned eleven factions that make up the two main rival party alliances. In addition to them, there are other political forces that are expected to have an interesting, if not decisive influence on the outcome of the election. Forces that are widely known, such as the HDP, for example, but are also relatively unknown outside of Turkey. Reason for parties like:

• V Motherland Party (Memlek) Muharrem Ince
• V environmental/leftist/pro-Kurdish party Yesil Sol (YSP)
• And Erkan Bas Labor Council

The pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP), the third largest seat in Turkey’s National Assembly after the AKP and the CHP, did not join the aforementioned Great Alliances of the People or Nation, although this is now clear. that will support the candidacy of the oppositionist Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu against Erdoğan in the 14th presidential election.^her May, after he announced that he was not nominating his own candidate, as was the case in the previous presidential elections in 2018 and 2014 (in both cases, the candidate for the presidency was Selahattin Demirtas, who has been imprisoned since 2016). On the other hand, however, by the time of the elections in a month and a half, starting today, the HDP in its current form may well cease to exist, as it is subject to a court decision on a possible ban, the decision is expected to be announced after the first ten days of April, when the parties wishing to take part in the Turkish elections will have already submitted their lists of candidates to the competent electoral commission, lists that will no longer have time to change.

What will HDP do?

In other words, the HDP runs the risk of being left out of the electoral battle if it does not provide for the search and provision of alternative guarantees. Therefore, in order to avoid this danger, the party is preparing to take part in the elections under the auspices of the environmental/left Yeshil Sol Party – YSP. And this is regardless of any decision of Turkish justice. Therefore, whether it is banned in April or not, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) will join the YSP bandwagon in this election, as its co-chair also announced. Mithat Sanjar, in the context of an interview he gave to Hulk on March 22. YSP even changed their logo to look more like HDP. “We are not going to get involved in a process that puts us at risk of being banned (of the party), even if that chance (of being banned) is one in a thousand,” said Sancar, co-chair of the HDP, while Selahattin Sam Demirtas actually announced it in a post on Twitter since mid-March. It is recalled that the HDP itself eventually emerged as a faction as a result of the dissolution of another pro-Kurdish party, Democratic Society Party (RAP), which was banned by a court decision in 2009.

Hello friends, how are you?

Please make a color printout of this image and stick it on the door of the refrigerator or room in the house. Ne oğının bilmeyen kalmasin, kızım olacak 🙂

Hello friends, Elden Ele… @YesillerSol pic.twitter.com/NodsoPINnq

— Selahattin Demirtas (@hdpdemirtas) March 14, 2023

Soner Tsagaptai of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy stresses to the FT that the HDP has an “extremely well-organized and disciplined voter base” and that, as a matter of fact, “its voters will migrate en masse to any new party.” “In connection with the elections on 14^her Maybe. “The pro-Kurdish opposition in Turkey has been under attack for so long that it has become an expert in overcoming prohibitions and restrictions,” comments Cagaptai.

However, what the Turkish opposition has not been able to fully overcome even during a period of unprecedented anti-Erdogan rallies like the current one is internal divisions. For a reason to be true, just look at his case Muharrem Ince. The politician, who was the Republican People’s Party (CHP) presidential candidate in the 2018 elections against Erdogan, has since left the CHP, formed his own Motherland (Memlek) party and is now running a new presidential candidate. against not only Erdogan, but also Kılıçdaroğlu, thereby depriving the opposition bloc of the “six” of votes.

Otherwise, the cases of two other politicians, 43-year-old Erkan Bas and 44-year-old Fatih Erbakan, are also of interest. Bas is the leader of the small opposition Labor Party TİP, a politician previously elected to parliament by the HDP, but now, according to seasoned observers, he is rising in the ranks of the Turkish opposition. Erbakan, on the other hand, is the son of Necmetin Erbakan and is now the leader of a small party, Yeniden Refah Partisi – YRP, which has officially joined Erdogan’s People’s Alliance, but leaves a shadow over its future dispositions.