Political parties in Turkey this week face a looming Friday evening deadline from the Supreme Election Council (YSK) to submit their lists of parliamentary candidates for the country’s upcoming elections on May 14. As parties and coalitions finalize their lists, Turkey’s far-left Labor and Freedom Alliance, consisting of seven parties including the Turkey Workers’ Party (TİP) and People’s Democratic Party (HDP) has spent recent days in disagreement over whether to field separate parliamentary candidates in certain districts or to run joint candidates.
As Turkey faces one of the most significant elections in its history that will determine the fate of the 20-year-long AKP rule, virtually all significant opposition parties band together to assure their defeat. While the alliances are oftentimes uneasy, the left coalition appears to be struggling with its own set of questions as to how they will proceed in the elections, as TİP chairman Erkan Baş rejects running joint candidates this week.
The People’s Democratic Party (HDP), Turkey Workers’ Party (TİP), Labor Party (EMEP), Labor Action Party (EHP), Communal Freedom Party (TÖP), Green Left Party (YSP), and the Socialist Parliament Federation (SMF) make up the Labor and Freedom Alliance, the left-most coalition entering Turkey’s May 14 parliamentary elections. The pro-Kurdish HDP represents by far the largest of these parties, and routinely captures 10-12% of the vote in nationwide elections; enough to significantly impact the outcome in the multi-party system. The party, however, faces an ongoing closure suit that resulted in a recent decision from HDP party leaders to run their parliamentary candidates under the Green Left Party in the event that the HDP is shut down by Turkey’s supreme court in the interim.
The HDP has requested that all members of the coalition enter May’s polls in each of Turkey’s parliamentary districts under the coalition banner in order to boost the group’s collective election chances and avoid a splitting of the far-left vote. The TİP, however, has announced that it prefers to run their own candidates in certain districts, a request that has drawn rebuke from some members of the coalition’s largest party.
TİP Chairman Erkan Baş has insisted that the party’s choice to run their own candidates in certain districts will pose no threat to the coalition’s parliamentary chances. In a recent press conference, the chairman said “To be sure, in the districts where our party sees the potential to run our own candidates, we will do so with an approach that will cause no harm to our coalition or the opposition at large.”
Among the loudest voices criticizing Baş’s announcement have been imprisoned former HDP officials Gültan Kışanak and Selahattin Demirtaş. Kışanak, a former co-mayor of the southeastern city of Diyarbakir who has been imprisoned in Kocaeli since 2016, was the first to voice criticism saying in a recent written piece: “If we do not enter the elections with joint candidate lists, then our alliance ceases to be an electoral alliance.
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Former HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş, imprisoned in Edirne since 2016, followed up on Kışanak’s statement with a statement of his own saying “We call on all socialists and democrats of Turkey to give strength to the Green Left Party lists in this election, where even a single parliamentary seat will determine our future.”Current HDP co-chair Mithat Sancar released a conciliatory statement on the matter that seemed to downplay reports of a potential schism within the leftist coalition, saying “Everyone will see that the problems we are currently discussing will be resolved in a way that ensures the best possible end result. No one needs to be pessimistic or worried. We are building a democratic alliance from one end to the other. It’s not an easy job, but it happens when you put in effort, and it happens when you believe.”
Current HDP co-chair Mithat Sancar released a conciliatory statement on the matter that seemed to downplay reports of a potential schism within the leftist coalition, saying “Everyone will see that the problems we are currently discussing will be resolved in a way that ensures the best possible end result. No one needs to be pessimistic or worried. We are building a democratic alliance from one end to the other. It’s not an easy job, but it happens when you put in effort, and it happens when you believe.”The Labor and Freedom alliance will not be fielding their own presidential candidate for May’s elections. Despite an original announcement in January saying they planned to run their own candidate, the HDP decided against it last month following a cordial meeting with main opposition joint candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. While the HDP remains outside of Kılıçdaroğlu’s Table of Six alliance, the party’s choice not to run their own presidential candidate was interpreted as a sign of tacit support for the opposition leader’s candidacy. While the HDP enjoys support amongst Kurdish voters, concentrated in southeastern Anatolia, the TİP is thought to appeal mostly to leftist white Turk voters, a demographic and regional difference that may explain the TİP’s desire to run their own candidate in select parliamentary districts.
Written for Medyascope by Leo Kendrick
