The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey on Friday known as on its supporters to vote for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main opponent in subsequent month’s presidential election, extensively anticipated to be probably the most hotly contested race in Erdoğan’s 20-year rule.
The opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, is supported by a wide-ranging coalition from throughout the political spectrum.
“At this breaking stage of Turkish politics, we have come together to fulfill our historic duty, both as part of our tradition and our debt to future generations” forward of the “historic election” on May 14, the HDP stated in a statement.
“In this context, we share with the public our decision to support Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential elections,” it added.
The vote of the Kurdish inhabitants, which makes up round a fifth of Turkey’s 85-million inhabitants, is about to be a decisive issue in the presidential race, as Kılıçdaroğlu and Erdoğan are going face to face in an election which POLITICO’s Poll of Polls reveals is on a knife edge.
The left-leaning HDP party is the biggest pro-Kurdish political drive, representing round two-thirds of the Kurdish vote, the party’s chief Selahattin Demirtaş — who’s at the moment serving a jail sentence on terrorism expenses — just lately told POLITICO.
Kılıçdaroğlu, 74, is an understated former bureaucrat who has led the main opposition party, the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), for greater than a decade.
Turkey’s double-digit inflation and mounting criticism towards the federal government’s response to the devastating earthquake that killed tens of 1000’s in February have given him an actual shot at ousting Erdoğan.
