Bloomberg: Erdogan’s electoral setbacks continue ahead of the presidential race
Bloomberg reported that the Turkish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) won’t present its candidate in the presidential elections in May, which enhances the chances of the main opposition alliance to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The co-chair of the HDP, Pervin Buldan, as saying that the party and 5 allied left-wing groups will launch a campaign against one-man rule.
The support for the Peoples’ Democratic Party proved decisive in the previous elections, as Democratic Party voters largely consider that Kilicdaroglu can help defend the rights of the Kurdish minority in Türkiye, which constitutes about a fifth of the population of 85 million.
The growing unity of the opposition highlights the challenge Erdogan faces, with mounting public backlash over his government’s response to deadly earthquakes last month, as well as the deepest cost-of-living crisis in the past two decades.
It’s noteworthy that new opinion polls in Türkiye indicated that the opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is ahead of Erdogan by more than 10% points before the May 14 elections, with 55.6% and 44.4%, respectively.
