The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) will insist on the Labour and Freedom Alliance entering the elections as a single party and under a single list. “If we enter under different lists we’ll end up pulling against each other,” said the party’s Group Deputy Chairman Saruhan Oluç in a live broadcast on Artı TV on Tuesday.
“The decision of the (HDP) to run in all 81 provinces of Turkey in the parliamentary elections is indisputable and clear,” said Oluç.
He was referring to changes to Turkey’s electoral law in 2022, which meant that parties entering elections as part of an alliance would have their votes combined for the purposes of the electoral threshold, but votes of any one party insufficient to win a seat would subsequently be discarded, so the changes would only benefit the ruling People’s Alliance of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the National Movement Party (MHP).
The HDP had carried out projections and seen the losses they could face if they entered the elections with different lists in various provinces. “If an MP could be elected with 80,000 votes somewhere, and a party from the alliance parties received 79,000 votes, those 79,000 votes would be thrown in the bin,” Oluç said.
In order to gain enough seats to have legislative power, the MP said, the HDP could not afford to withdraw from the election in any province. “Such a thing is not acceptable to our voters either.”
The HDP was insistent on the issue and would exercise all means to form the strongest group in parliament on 14 May, “but we don’t have the luxury to withdraw from the election here and there,” he added.
The changes in the election law are significant for Turkey’s democracy, as the 2023 election “is not just any election”, Oluç said, but it would either institutionalise fascism and maintain the autocratic system, or clear the path to a transformation to democracy.
