ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Nine Kurdish parties announced the formation of the Kurdish Freedom and Democracy Alliance in Diyarbakir (Amed) on Monday, calling on their supporters to unite around the Green Left Party.
The Kurdish parties, headed by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the Green Left Party, read a joint declaration regarding their stance in the upcoming parliamentary elections, in Kurdish and Turkish.
“The May 14, 2023 elections are a historic opportunity for reconstructing democracy in Turkey and to solve the Kurdish issue,” read the joint declaration, adding that the existing opposition alliances do not represent a concrete solution for change and that democracy cannot be achieved without solving the Kurdish question.
The parties also called for the release of all the political prisoners and urged the government to “end the isolation” of jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan and other political prisoners in Turkey.
“We call on our people to unite around the Green Left Party and vote for the Green Left Party by going to the elections on May 14 for the great success in which the hope of our peoples will come to life,” they added.
HDP, which is facing a party closure case, will enter the elections under the umbrella of the Green Left Party. The next hearing of the case is set for April 11.
The Turkish parliamentary and presidential elections are set to take place on May 14 as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and development Party (AKP) are facing their toughest challenge to date.
Six major Turkish opposition parties formed the Nation alliance and chose Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the people’s Republican Party (CHP) as their common candidate to take on Erdogan.
HDP, who are hailed as the kingmaker of these elections as they are expected to win around 6 million votes, offered their tacit support to CHP’s Kilicdaroglu in the presidential race by not presenting a candidate.
HDP was founded in 2012 as a pro-Kurdish leftist party. With a diverse group of candidates from devout Muslims, to minority representatives, socialists, and LGBT activists, HDP passed the 10 percent vote threshold and entered the parliament in 2015.
The party acted as an intermediary during the peace process between the Turkish state and the PKK between 2013 and 2015, marking short years of hope that the decades-long conflict that left tens of thousands dead might finally come to an end.
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