Turkey’s political parties announced their ambitious candidate lists this week for the June 7 general elections, which will deliver a fateful verdict on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions to install a presidential system. In a remarkable development, the parties have opened up to minority groups, which have been largely sidelined from politics, excluding the early years of the modern republic. Members of the Greek, Armenian, Yazidi and Roma communities have been given favorable spots on the slates, raising the prospect of strong minority representation in the next parliament.

The pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HDP), on a quest to become a nationwide party appealing to voters beyond its traditional Kurdish base, has fielded three Armenian candidates — Garo (Karabet) Paylan, Murad Mihci and Filor Uluk Benli — in addition to two Yazidis, Ali Atalan and Feleknaz Uca, and the Syriac Erol Dora. The list of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) features Armenian journalist Markar Esayan.

The biggest surprise came from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), where an in-house struggle is underway between neonationalist and reformist wings. The party fielded ethnic Armenian lawyer Selina Ozuzun Dogan as its top candidate in Istanbul’s 2nd district, a move that sparked controversy within the CHP, where the camp denying the Armenian genocide holds the upper hand. CHP Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu reportedly had to make a choice between Dogan and Goksel Gulbey, head of the Association for Struggle Against False Armenian Claims, which has been at the forefront of genocide denial campaigns. Convinced that fielding both would be a contradiction, the CHP leader favored Dogan over Gulbey, who had applied to run in the eastern province of Igdir.

Dogan was immediately questioned whether she would bring up the “Armenian allegations” in parliament. In remarks to Al Jazeera Turk, she said she disliked the question, stressing that Turkey’s democratization was her first priority. Some in the party called on Dogan to withdraw her candidacy, while neonationalist circles slammed the CHP, saying that Ataturk’s party had fielded a candidate promoting the Armenian allegations. The daily Aydinlik, for instance, ran a story headlined, “The CHP’s centenary present to the [Armenian] diaspora,” evoking this year’s 100th anniversary of the Armenian massacres. Referring to Dogan’s husband, a well-known lawyer, the newspaper wrote that “the CHP fielded the wife of Erdal Dogan, who had branded the Turkish Republic a genocide perpetrator.”