The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) may have an altogether different alliance in the mind than its former chair, Selahattin Demirtaş, but the jailed leader of the party with close links to the terrorist group PKK hopes the main opposition bloc known as "table for six" will cooperate with the party he once led. In an interview with Reuters through a letter from the prison where he is incarcerated, Demirtaş urged the six-party alliance to cooperate with the HDP "to win the presidential and parliamentary elections," which are scheduled to be held in May or June.
The HDP is allied with several smaller parties and held the first election campaign rally of the alliance in Istanbul last Sunday. The party's co-Chair Pervin Buldan announced earlier that they would field their own candidate. Buldan clearly opposed an alliance with the six-party alliance when she spoke at an event in Istanbul last week, saying the HDP would not be "the whipping boy" of "any table." Though the opposition bloc appears friendly with the HDP, it has avoided open cooperation so far. Yet, Demirtaş did not rule out backing a joint opposition candidate against the People's Alliance, whose candidate is incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Demirtaş' party, which once enjoyed a boost in votes, primarily from Kurdish voters, is in tatters now after it failed to distance itself from the PKK terrorist group. Prosecutors have demanded its closure for terrorist ties, while Demirtaş himself faces a lengthy sentence for inciting deadly riots in 2014 across Türkiye that targeted civilians and security forces.
Earlier this month, the chief public prosecutor of the Supreme Court presented his final argument in a trial that may spell the end of the HDP. Bekir Şahin told reporters after presenting his final argument that the party served as "a recruitment office" of the PKK terrorist group, whose attacks have claimed tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s. Şahin said the HDP's ties with the terrorist group were "a clear fact" and said they presented all evidence regarding the "defendant party's role against the integrity of the country and nation," referring to PKK's so-called separatist agenda.
The HDP has been facing a shutdown of its activities since 2021 when Şahin launched a lawsuit accusing party leaders and members of acting in a way that defies the democratic and universal rules of law, colluding with the PKK and affiliated groups, and aiming to destroy and eliminate the indivisible integrity of the state. He has consistently called for the party to be banned from all state financial support and a political ban on its members, including former leaders. The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization in Türkiye, along with the United States and the European Union.
The Constitutional Court will evaluate his request. Then, the HDP will be allowed time to prepare a verbal defense against Şahin’s accusations. Subsequently, all 15 members of the court will reach a conclusion following a series of assessments on whether the party will be banned as per circumstances listed in Article 69 of the Constitution or stripped entirely or partially of government funding. A verdict is only possible if two-thirds of the court members, i.e. 10 of them, reach a majority vote. Should the Constitutional Court rule to ban the HDP, persons facing the verdict will not be permitted to be founders, members, directors and supervisors of another party for five years.
Şahin told reporters that the "entire nation" was aware of the HDP's links to the PKK and "that the HDP cannot be considered a separate entity from the PKK and served it." He added, "Nobody heard members of the defendant party condemn the PKK and its administrators describe it as an armed public movement." He said their main evidence against the HDP "serving as a recruitment office of the PKK" were children who were forced to join the terrorist group or tricked into joining them by terrorists, pointing out to the sit-ins staged outside HDP offices by families of those children for more than three years. He said this role of the HDP still continued even after the launch of the lawsuit. The chief prosecutor said the verdict's timing was "at the Constitutional Court's discretion."
Earlier, the Constitutional Court suspended state funding for the HDP as part of the ongoing lawsuit. The court’s ruling to deprive the party of funds as a “temporary measure” came weeks after Bekir Şahin submitted the request to “urgently” block the party’s accounts where it receives funds from the Treasury on the grounds of it having “organic ties” to the PKK and using the funds in line with the aims of the group. Following a response from the HDP, the court is set to reevaluate its decision on whether the suspension will be removed or stay in effect. Of the eight members of the board, seven were reportedly in favor of the suspension.
