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Turkey
IYI Party Leader Meral Aksener speaks at a party event in Ankara on September 6, 2022. Photo: IYI Party/Twitter
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Turkish ultranationalist and opposition politician said on Monday that her party will not enter any alliance with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) for the upcoming elections. This angered the HDP, with one of its lawmakers being offended by the remarks.
Six Turkish opposition parties, consisting of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and newly-established parties, have in recent years formed an alliance with the hope of beating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the June 2023 parliamentary elections. They have avoided the inclusion of the HDP due to the pro-Kurdish party’s alleged links to Kurdish rebels.
The IYI Party, which was founded by a group of politicians who defected from the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in 2017, is also in the six-party alliance. The MHP is a de-facto ruling party and a strong ally of the AKP.
Meral Aksener, leader of the IYI Party, said during a party event in Ankara on Monday that her party “will not be at a table where the HDP is present.”
“This sensitivity will continue. Party officials have made necessary statements regarding the issue and party sensitivities,” she added, reported HaberTurk on Tuesday.
Her comment came amid a wave of backlash from her party officials to Gursel Tekin, a lawmaker for the CHP, who said on Sunday that the HDP could be given ministerial positions if the six parties beat Erdogan’s AKP and form a cabinet.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the CHP, has reportedly denied Tekin’s remark.
"No, there is no such thing. The important thing here is that six leaders take decisions about Turkey's problems and announce them to the public,” he was quoted by HaberTurk as saying.
The HDP has been accused by Turkish officials of being the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) - an armed group struggling for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. Ankara considers the PKK a terrorist organization and has jailed thousands of HDP officials and members on terror charges. Therefore, any alliance with the HDP may anger the nationalist voters of the six political parties.
The HDP has denied any organic ties to the PKK, but has stated that it respects the ideology of the group’s jailed leader, Abdullah Ocalan.
Despite its exclusion from the opposition alliance, the HDP supported the CHP in the local elections in 2019, helping it win the Istanbul municipality which had been ruled by the AKP for decades.
Huseyin Kacmaz, a lawmaker for the HDP, slammed Aksener for her remark, saying her party is racing with its mother party, MHP, to become Erdogan’s next ally.
“I wish success to the six-party alliance,” Kacmaz said sarcastically in a tweet on Tuesday, addressing the far-right party: “You will never obtain the position of premiership without the HDP [support].”
The six parties have announced their intent to return the country to a parliamentary system after it was changed to a presidential one by the AKP over recent years. The premiership position has been scrapped in the new system but Aksener has said that once her party wins the upcoming elections, she will be the next prime minister of the country.
“Through the halal votes of this nation, our party will be the winner and I will definitely be a prime minister” she told party members in May, adding that she deserves the position.
Meral Danis Bestas, another HDP lawmaker, said on Monday that her party “clearly has not entered any negotiations over ministerial positions with anyone.”
“Despite this, we would like to see how those will embrace the society and run the country who tries to humiliate the HDP supporters with artificial arguments in an ugly way,” she added.
The HDP won 67 seats in the 600-seat Turkish parliament in 2018 while the IYI Party won 43.
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