One day before Turkey’s top court made a critical decision on the closure case filed against the People’s Democratic Party (HDP), a lawyer claimed that the pro-Kurdish party’s tactical move to field candidates under the Green Left Party in coming polls amounts to election fraud.
The lawyer, from Turkey’s western province of İzmir, handed files to Turkey’ Constitutional Court, Supreme Election Board and the chief prosecutor of the Court of Cassation on Monday, asking them to take legal action against the Green Left Party for allowing the HDP to run under its lists, pro-government news agency, Sabah, reported on Monday.
HDP took decisive action last month to run under Green lists, as it faces impending closure and a ban on members’ involvement in Turkey’s political scene.
The lawyer argues that the Green Left Party and the HDP have the same legal entity, and therefore any decision of Turkey’s top court to close down the HDP should also apply to the Green Left Party. He wants the election board to send back the parliamentary the Green Left Party’s candidate list so it can be amended as a list of the HDP.
Ülük claimed that the HDP was “a separatist party that takes orders from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)” and said “in a country that follows the rule of the law, none of the constitutional institutions and judicial bodies with competence can allow fraud against existing law,” reported the Turkish daily.
The closure case was filed against the pro-Kurdish HDP in 2021. The party declined to present an oral defence for the case, citing a busy schedule of election campaigning. The court noted no defence was submitted by the 11 April deadline and ordered its rapporteur to prepare the final report on the case file.
