HDP Co-Chair: Together with Nation’s Alliance we would get 70 percent of the votes

People’s Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Mithat Sancar on Friday demonstrated once again a will of unity with the six opposition parties that formed the Nation’s Alliance to compete the ruling block in next year’s elections, saying they would easily win if they joined forces after negotiating the matter. 

When Sancar was asked during an electoral visit if the HDP would partner with the opposition parties in the presidential elections next year, like in the municipal elections of 2019, he replied: “This is what we are working for. Let's establish talks [with the Nation’s Alliance] and pack off this ruling block. In this way, we would get 60-70 percent,” he said. 

The opposition claimed victory in the municipal elections of Turkey’s biggest cities Istanbul and Ankara, with support of the HDP voters, roughly 10 percent of the total electorate, but little has been done by either side to reestablish unity. 

One big issue against the HDP in the Nation’s Alliance is the fear of losing electorate because of AKP’s recurrent claims about HDP being merely a political wing of PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), a militant group that took up arms against Turkey since 1984 and seen as a terrorist organization by the US and the EU.

Jailed Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtas, Former Co-Chair of the HDP, suggested a change in strategy to overcome this obstacle in an article he wrote last month. 

“We need to explain clearly in the most appropriate language that we know that politics and violence cannot coexist, and that we are working seriously for an honorable peace.” he said, calling HDP followers to respect the sensitivities of the Nation’s Alliance.