Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş is trying to get on everyone's good side, especially those who participated in Gezi Park, through sometimes brave statements and sometimes humorous explanations. Nevertheless, his endeavors are unable to go beyond being commemorated as a neo-populist politician, the rhetoric of which he and his pro-Kurdish HDP is gradually being dragged into. The general elections are less than a week away and one of the most controversial issues is whether the HDP will be able to pass the 10 percent election threshold. It is known that the party made a difference in the way it has been conducting its election campaign, rather participating in the election with independent candidates as it has been done before. This time the party decided to enter the parliamentary elections as a party, which is believed to be a risk by many. Undoubtedly, the 9.7 percent of the vote taken by Demirtaş in the 2014 presidential election provided motivation for the party to make this risky decision, and the party accordingly built its elections campaign upon slogans similar to that of U.S. President Barack Obama, but this time it is: "Yes, we can pass the threshold." Demirtaş even kicked off his election campaign in Berlin where he called on the Kurdish-Turkish electorate to help the party pass the threshold. Presumably, Demirtaş is the main figure of this campaign. As a matter of fact, he is currently enjoying the role that has been cast since the presidential election in which he tries to be shown as an alternative political figure with brave statements. Among them, especially issues such as the debate on the importance of Taksim Square for Labor Day and harsh rhetoric against the Presidency of Religious Affairs (DİB) took the very reaction of people. While he defined Taksim Square as the "Kaaba for workers ..." and even dared to call Jerusalem the holy place for Jews, his apparent sensitivity basically cannot be applied for the DİB and Mehmet Görmez, the head of the DİB. His pledge to remove the DİB in the event the HDP wins the elections, predictably puzzled people as to what kind of a perspective he and his party has toward religious people in Turkey, who really tended to see the DİB of capital importance. In other words, it has to be mentioned here that Demirtaş, even as he aspired for the votes of conservative Kurdish citizens, is inevitably a convenient, contradictory political figure.A theoretical approach to the HDP and DemirtaşIt would be accurate to suggest here that rather than representing the demands of Turkish society and becoming the leader of a party with a claim on being the "party of Turkey," Demirtaş lacks the capability to pass beyond making a neo-populist mark on the Turkish electorate. Framing him within terms of classical populism would miss the opportunity of evaluating his political stance accurately as two distinguishing features enable us to consider him and his party within the frame of the neo-populism that stormed through Latin American countries.First of all, the malleable character of the HDP's political stance takes an important place in our evaluation of Demirtaş and his party being identified as neo-populist political components. Different from what classical populism actually does, as Victor Armony says in his article "Populism and Neo-Populism in Latin America," neo-populism develops a more pragmatic attitude toward social and economic policies. It is also possible to interpret this fact as a classical distinction that left and right politics are not clearly separated in neo-populist political components. Returning to the HDP, the aforementioned feature of neo-populism manifests itself in the party's political motives. Despite the party being pro-Kurdish and taking the majority of its votes from Kurdish citizens of Turkey, the party is still capable of developing a language constructed upon leftist political concepts such as labor rights, the situation of minorities in Turkey and humanism with a considerable pragmatic approach. Undeniably, the dominance of Marxist-Leninist ideology in the past is another factor in the complexity of the situation of the nature of the Kurdish political movement.While the theoretical aspect of the issue can be contextualized as such, Demirtaş's artificially constructed charisma through his so-called sympathetic behaviors either in the media or public sphere constitutes the other pillar of neo-populism of the HDP and its leader. During his campaign for the presidential election he featured himself playing bağlama with the slogan: "The president who plays nothing but bağlama" - the word for play in Turkish also means "to steal." Again, it is obvious that he tries to get some social-democrat votes from the Republican People's Party (CHP) with several jokes, cracks and humor in his statements. Namely, Demirtaş is in the pursuit of seeming to be a "sincere reformer" whose actions are a "genuine reflection of the popular will," by approving George Philip's argument in his 1998 work, "The New Populism, Presidentialism and Market-Orientated reform in Spanish South America."What President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in his speech at the general meeting of Turkey's Bus Drivers' Federation on May 28 becomes quite meaningful. Calling as a pop-star, Erdoğan brought up the point that the HDP leader's sense of humor is nothing but a mask, saying: "Isn't this the guy who poured people into the streets and caused the death of 50 people in Oct. 6-8 incidents? He didn't take a step back from threatening people."Demirtaş: An alternative created, not acquiredIt is a clear and distinct issue that Demirtaş is a figure who is striving to confront Erdoğan as the leader of the anti-Erdoğan coalition. So far, him being described as "charismatic and only 42 years old" in the Financial Times or being pointed to as the politician who might turn out to be right in his prediction of "destroying one man's dictatorship" in the Economist even proves that his and his party's flagrant link with the PKK terrorist organization is neglected and they try to bring him forward as an alternative. Glossing over this link by performing humorous acts is certainly a good way to go about it. Nevertheless, what he is trying to do by using humor as a weapon still lacks efficiency in terms of both the percentage of votes he got and winning the favor of Turkish society. Whereas Adnan Menderes, who was undeniably the most miserable victim of the 1960 coup, or Turgut Özal, who paved the way for Turkey's integration with global economy, and Erdoğan, who has made his mark in Turkish history in the 21st century, could reach a good state in winning the favor in the Turkish people. The common point in these leaders in order to be commemorated with gratitude was that all of them were sincere politicians to their people, especially in terms of responding to what people really want rather than making empty promises. In other words, the "Great Humanity" slogan of the HDP and Demirtaş with his constructed charisma is obliged to deprive people's complaisance sooner or later because he is lacking in sincerity. Therefore, it is not be too soon to say that the HDP might pay a high price for entering the elections as a party relying mostly on Demirtaş's "charisma." Since both the HDP and Demirtaş constitute no more than a neo-populist mark on Turkish political history, the society might hit the party and its leader by preventing it from passing the election threshold considering they are becoming more conscious by the day.