Pro-Kurdish opposition prepares for snap poll in Turkey
Despite the wave of arrests and disillusioned voters, the new leader of the Peoples’ Democratic Party says it will still win enough votes to enter parliament if elections are moved forward.
Turkey’s embattled opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said on Thursday it is preparing for a possible early general election in which it expects to clear the 10% vote threshold to enter parliament, despite a government crackdown that has jailed nine of its lawmakers and largely crippled the Kurdish political movement.
The HDP, which draws support largely from Kurdish voters, has seen almost all 102 mayors from a sister party ousted from their posts and thousands of party members arrested on charges of supporting Kurdish militants, which the party denies. Dozens of Kurdish civil society groups and news outlets have also been banned, part of a broader clampdown during a state of emergency imposed after a failed military coup in 2016. The HDP is not implicated in the putsch.
“An early election is now on Turkey’s agenda. … We have made preparations for a vote if it is held this July or in the fall,” Pervin Buldan, the HDP’s newly elected co-chairwoman, said at a press conference. “Public opinion polls show that the HDP has not fallen below 10%, and despite the constant detentions, is increasing its support, and so it does not face the problem of falling below the vote threshold.”
Municipal, parliamentary and presidential elections are all slated for next year, and last week Prime Minister Binali Yildirim rejected suggestions that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was preparing for an early vote.
