HDP may not repeat its support to opposition in next election, warns Buldan

Photo: HDP

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Pervin Buldan has reiterated that they may not support the opposition alliance in the next presidential election if its approach to the HDP and the Kurdish question does not change.

"If the HDP takes a different stance in the election period and chooses a third way, it won't be responsible for this, the opposition parties that avoid appearing together with the HDP will be," Pervin Buldan told Mesopotamia Agency (MA).

Neither the ruling People's Alliance of the AKP and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) nor the opposition Nation's Alliance for the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the İYİ (Good) Party can reach a majority according to recent opinion polls for the June 2023 elections, which makes the HDP's choice decisive.

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"In the last elections, a coalition of forces for democracy was formed. As the HDP, we supported [them] to make the AKP [Justice and Development Party] lose," she said referring to the 2019 local elections.

As the HDP did not nominate a candidate for the İstanbul Mayor, the CHP's Ekrem İmamoğlu won the election, bringing the 25-year rule of the AKP and its predecessors to an end.

However, for the HDP to repeat its support, the opposition's stance should change as it currently "avoids appearing together with the HDP," according to Buldan.

"If there is a coalition of forces, we need something new that includes the HDP, the representatives of the Kurds," she said.

"... The lack of courage of the opposition and its approach to the HDP will not win them anything in this election. Everybody should be loud and clear.

"If democracy will improve in this country, it should begin with the resolution of the Kurdish question. Can you talk about democracy in this country without the Kurdish question being resolved? Of course not," she noted. (DŞ/VK)