HDP co-chair says his party is on the ‘knife’s edge’ of election threshold
ISTANBUL
AP Photo
With the parliamentary elections only four days away, Kurdish problem-oriented Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has said he could not say with inner peace that his party would pass the 10 percent election threshold, adding they were “on the knife’s edge.”“According to data that has reached us, the HDP stands on the knife’s edge. I wish we could have said with inner peace that [the HDP] has passed [the 10 percent threshold],” said Demirtaş June 3, speaking at a televised interview on a private TV channel.
The HDP decided to enter the June 7 elections as a party, unlike their former practice of running for parliament as independent deputy candidates under a block, just as they did at the 2011 general elections, out of fear of not being able to pass the 10 percent threshold.
Demirtaş, who had also run for the presidency during the country’s first ever vote to directly elect a president, along with HDP co-chair Figen Yüksekdağ, had said they would enter the June 7 elections as a party and were confident they would pass the threshold.
Claiming to be a party embracing all of society, Demirtaş said one vote would change many things in the elections.
“I ask from all of Turkey, we want the ‘being good state’ to prevail at the end of the elections,” Demirtaş said. “The HDP’s rise will be hope for Turkey,” he added.
