Removing the current government from power in Turkey’s 14 May general elections will be a way out of hell, but the road to paradise is long and arduous, said the Co-chair of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Mithat Sancar, in an extensive interview with Gazete Karınca on Saturday.
Sancar was referring to the slogan which was frequently used by the anti-government movement in the run-up to Brazil’s last election: “Lula is not the door to heaven, but he is certainly the door out of hell.” In the elections which took place on 31 October, then-president authoritarian Jair Bolsonaro lost to opposition candidate Lula da Silva.
“We see this period as a process in which we carry out the struggle with the aim of making the government lose and changing the order,” said the Co-chair of the HDP. The pro-Kurdish party will enter the elections as a part of the Labour and Freedom Alliance and under the Green Left Party lists due to the ongoing closure case against the HDP.
Stressing that the 14 May elections will be held at a “critical juncture”, Sancar said that talks are ongoing with the officials of the Workers’ Party of Turkey (TİP), which has made the decision to enter the elections under the umbrella of the alliance but with its own emblems. “We are, on the basis of comradeship, currently carrying out very meticulous work on options and formulas that will not lead to any loss,” Sancar added.
The HDP and other parties in the left-wing alliance aim to enter the upcoming elections with a joint list under the roof of a single party. Sancar believes that this method will provide more gains both numerically and politically.
“Beyond party interests, we consider it very important for the democracy struggle to provide a constituent power that will play a key role in the Parliament and a representation that will be at the centre of the new construction process,” Sancar said.
Sancar also said that the TİP had its own reasons for not entering the elections with a joint list and emphasised that they attach great importance and value to the alliance from a political point of view, so they are discussing methods to ensure its protection. “We agreed that expanding and maintaining the alliance is important for a new democratic construction,” Sancar said.
The reason and purpose of the Labour and Freedom Alliance’s decision not to field its own candidate against Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the candidate of the main opposition bloc, was “to form a broad democratic unity that will make the current government lose both in the parliamentary and presidential elections,” the HDP co-chair said.
