The PKK terrorist organization has implied that it will support the candidacy of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in Türkiye in May.
The PKK's umbrella organization's "co-chair" Bese Hozat said during an interview on Monday to a PKK-affiliated channel that it supports the stance of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
“We find the HDP's stance of supporting the Nation Alliance valuable, important and meaningful. It will directly affect the outcome of the elections. We support this stance,” Hozat said.
Saying that the upcoming elections will be of critical importance, Hozat said that it wants the current government down.
The HDP has given Kılıçdaroğlu its tacit support recently, announcing it would not field a presidential candidate in the May elections.
"We will not field a candidate in the presidential elections," Pervin Buldan, the party co-chair, told reporters.
Winning over 10% of the vote in the past three national elections, the HDP was widely seen as a kingmaker in the tight race, despite the increasing threat of being barred from Türkiye’s politics.
The HDP stayed out of the 2019 municipal elections that saw opposition leaders scrape into power in Istanbul and Ankara for the first time since the 1990s.
The HDP is generally blamed for becoming the focal point of actions in violation of the Turkish state’s “unbreakable unity” and having an “active role in providing personnel to the PKK."
Among the past remarks of party leaders proving the close ties to the terrorist group is a statement from Buldan who confessed to previous contact and communication between the party and the terrorist group and praised jailed PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and his role in the foundation of the party by rejecting the fact that the PKK is a terrorist group.
Moreover, the HDP has many times drawn ire for transferring taxpayer money and funds to the PKK. HDP mayors and local officials have been found to misuse funds in support of the PKK and provide jobs to the terrorist group's sympathizers.
