“Let’s not forget the past, what we saw and what we have experienced. But the future is more important. For a better future, I urge all our voters to support the electoral strategy of our party,” Demirtas, former co-chair of HDP, tweeted on Friday morning. He has been in jail since his arrest in 2016, facing the possibility of decades in prison on terror-related charges that he has denied.
The local elections have evolved into a nation-wide referendum on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan less than a year after he was re-elected to a presidency with greatly expanded powers. The famed orator has hit the campaign trail hard, holding sometimes twice-daily massive rallies.
Erdogan, who has boasted about his economic prowess, is on shaky ground since Turkey entered a recession and the lira has dropped in value. Polls indicate his Justice and Development Party (AKP) could lose in the capital Ankara, Reuters reported.
HDP formed an election alliance with six other Kurdish or pro-Kurdish parties and has focused its campaign in its stronghold in the southeast, pitching itself as a grassroots alternative to Erdogan’s authoritarianism.
People are “pessimistic about the future,” party co-chair Sezai Temelli said in a meeting with NGOs in Diyarbakir on Thursday.
With a campaign promise of promoting women’s representation, improving labour conditions, and protecting the environment, Temelli said, “We believe this strong step starts locally, we believe it starts with local democracy."
HDP is hoping to win back some 100 mayoral posts they were ousted from. In the government crackdown after the failed 2016 coup, the AKP removed pro-Kurdish mayors across the southeast, replacing them with loyalists it called trustees. HDP has accused the trustees of corruption and theft.
Erdogan has said that any new mayors deemed to have ties to the PKK or seen supporting the group be “immediately” replaced, Hurriyet Daily News reported from the campaign trail in February.
In races where HDP is not fielding a candidate, the party called for voters to be strategic and cast their ballots for allied opposition members. These strategic votes “will be an indicator of our strength,” said Demirtas, telling voters they have the power to decide the future.
