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Currently, 18 politicians stated their intention to run for the highest state office. Chairman of the main opposition Republican Peoples Party Kemal Kilicdaroglu is considered Erdogans main competitor.

In a context marked by recovery efforts after earthquakes that affected the country last month, Erdogan will seek to be re-elected for a third five-year term.

Representatives of the Justice and Development Party were accompanied by representatives of the Nationalist Movement Party, which acts in alliance with the ruling party. They stated that the two parties decided to nominate Erdogan as the single candidate and filed all necessary papers to the Supreme Election Council, as required by law.

Presidential elections in Turkey will take place on May 14, simultaneously with parliamentary elections. In order to win in the first round, a presidential candidate must secure over 50% of votes. Otherwise, a second round will take place, in which the two candidates with the highest support will run against each other. The previously presidential elections took place on June 24, 2018 with Erdogan winning with 52.6% of votes.

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Erdogan officially files candidate application for May 14 elections - Prensa Latina

ANKARA, March 22 (Reuters) - Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and its allies will not field a presidential candidate in May, the party said on Wednesday, raising the prospect of the opposition uniting against President Tayyip Erdogan's re-election bid.

The HDP also said it will run for parliament under the Green Left Party to circumvent its potential closure, a plan that its co-leader said had been brewing since the case was launched at the Constitutional Court in mid-2021.

Erdogan is facing the biggest challenge to his rule in his more than two decades of leading Turkey, with recent polls showing him trailing Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the Nation Alliance, made up of six parties.

But the HDP votes will be crucial for the opposition to exceed the 50% required to elect the president on May 14 and also secure a majority in parliament in the polls on the same day.

"In the presidential elections, we will carry out our responsibility against the one-man rule... We will not field a candidate in presidential elections," HDP co-leader Pervin Buldan said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Buldan did not openly say whether her alliance would support Kilicdaroglu, after they had met on Monday. The HDP's cooperation with the opposition in 2019 local elections helped defeat AKP's mayoral candidates in major cities.

The HDP is the third-biggest party in parliament with more than 10% support nationwide and is seen playing a decisive role in the presidential election on May 14.

Former HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtas, who has been in jail since 2016 over what the party says are political reasons, has previously voiced support for Kilicdaroglu, who is the leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP).

The HDP has faced a crackdown since the collapse in 2015 of Ankara's peace process with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

Thousands of HDP members, lawmakers and mayors have been jailed or stripped of their positions in recent years over alleged links to terrorism, which the party denies.

The HDP faces a case at the Constitutional Court, Turkey's highest, for its closure over charges it has links to Kurdish militants and could be banned from the May vote. HDP says the case is political.

On Wednesday, the court rejected the party's request to postpone its oral defence until after elections from its current date of April 11.

Co-leader Mithat Sancar said the HDP's candidates for parliament will run under the Green Left Party to circumvent the potential closure ahead of elections. "We couldn't have left this process up to the mercy of the government, to the initiative of the court," he said.

The HDP has experience from previous party closures and had been making alternative plans since the closure case was launched at the Constitutional Court, Sancar said in a televised interview with broadcaster Halk TV.

The Green Left Party has recently adopted an emblem similar to that of the HDP.

Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Jonathan Spicer, Alison Williams and Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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In vote setback for Erdogan, Turkey's HDP will not field candidate - Reuters

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, March 21 (Reuters) - Kurds who have long felt sidelined in Turkish politics could have a decisive role in a closely fought May election that will determine whether President Tayyip Erdogan extends his rule after more than two decades in power.

With polls showing support finely balanced between Erdogan's ruling alliance and the opposition, the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) is a potential kingmaker, although a court bid to ban it may mean it has to reform under a new party umbrella.

Among Kurds who gathered on Tuesday for the Newroz spring festival in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, those opposed to Erdogan were upbeat about their chances of securing his defeat at the presidential and parliamentary polls on May 14.

"We expect the regime to go and we will fight for it. We have high hopes for the election. Our peoples are standing together in all their colours," Zeynep Diyar, 36, a political activist, said as Kurdish music blared from loud speakers.

Soaring inflation and public criticism over the way the government handled the response to a devastating earthquake in February that killed at least 48,000 people in Turkey has left Erdogan and his AK Party facing the toughest electoral challenge since he first rose to power.

For many years Erdogan courted the Kurds, who make up about 20% of Turkey's population, winning support in the mainly Kurdish southeast with moves to boost Kurdish rights, economic progress and a bid to end a conflict with Kurdish militants.

But Kurdish support has steadily eroded as Erdogan's government has taken a stronger nationalist line, while his opponents have reached out to the pro-Kurdish HDP to support Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the CHP who opposition parties are backing as their candidate to defeat the president.

"Our demand is freedom and equality," said Diyar, at the spring celebrations, adding that she would vote for Kilicdaroglu if the HDP chose to rally behind him.

With opinion polls showing support for the HDP running at more than 10%, it could play a key role in a vote that will decide who leads Turkey and whether to extend Erdogan's brand of economics that once delivered growth and a construction boom, but which has now left Turks battling inflation of 55%.

The HDP, parliament's third-biggest party, wants the opposition to back demands for Kurdish rights and other issues. The Kurdish party held talks with Kilicdaroglu on Monday and is expected to announce this week whether it will back him.

HDP lawmaker Imam Tascier said Kilicdaroglu had acknowledged the "Kurdish problem", terms reminiscent of language used by Erdogan in earlier years when he was seeking Kurdish support.

Now, he said, Erdogan "pushed freedoms, democracy, human rights and the Kurdish problem away with the back of his hand".

Tascier said he was reprimanded by parliament's speaker three months ago for making a speech in Kurdish not Turkish.

Thousands of HDP members, lawmakers and mayors have been jailed or stripped of their positions in recent years.

In 2019, the HDP cooperated with the opposition to defeat the ruling AK Party's mayoral candidates in major cities.

"I don't think HDP voters will have difficulty in voting for Kilicdaroglu, given his recent efforts to build bridges with both Kurdish and conservative voters," said Vahap Coskun, a law academic at Diyarbakir's Dicle University.

While the opposition have been building bridges, Erdogan's AK Party has allied with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) since 2015, when a peace process aimed at ending an insurgency in southeast Turkey collapsed. MHP is a firm opponent of the Kurdish movement and its demands for cultural rights.

A survey by polling company SAMER in late 2022 showed AK Party support in the southeast had fallen since 2018, while support for the pro-Kurdish HDP had held firm.

Serif Aydin, the provincial head of the AK Party in Diyarbakir, told Reuters the polls were misleading and rejected criticism of the government's crisis response.

"We have tried our best and our people trust only Recep Tayyip Erdogan among politicians in this country to heal these wounds," he said.

But some residents in Diyarbakir, which was hit by the quake even if less severely than some cities, still say the government fell short. "If they had taken measures, not so many people would have died," said 55-year-old Mehmet Bektas.

Yet, legal challenges could derail the role of HDP, which also won almost 12% of the national vote in 2018.

In a case now in court, the party could be banned from the May vote over charges it has links to Kurdish militants. The HDP, which denies any such ties, has requested a postponement of its April 11 court hearing on grounds it would disrupt its vote preparations.

HDP officials declined to say what the party would do if the court hearing was not delayed but media reports said it would direct supporters to vote for the small Green and Left Future Party, which has adopted a party emblem similar to the HDP's.

The HDP has faced a crackdown since the collapse of Ankara's peace process with the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the insurgency launched in 1984.

Reporting by Daren Butler; Editing by Edmund Blair

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Turkey's Kurds eye kingmaker role in election against Erdogan - Reuters

Wednesday, 22 March, 2023 - 06:30

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged Tuesday to step up the flow of water along the Tigris River to drought-stricken Iraq for one month.

Erdogan told Iraq's visiting Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani that he was aware of the "urgent need for water" in Turkiye's war-scarred neighbour.

Official Iraqi statistics show the level of the Tigris entering the country last year dropping to just 35 percent of its average over the past century.

"For one month, we have taken the decision to increase the volume of water flowing along the Tigris River," Erdogan told a joint media appearance with Sudani.

"The issue of water will hopefully be resolved," AFP quoted Erdogan as saying.

For his part, Sudani expressed his gratitude and thanks to the president from the Iraqi people.

Also, Erdogan repeated his demand for Iraq to recognise the PKK as a terror group.

Sudani said that Iraq recognized Turkiye's security concerns.

"We won't allow Iraq to be used as a launching pad for attacks on Turkiye," he noted.

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Erdogan Vows to Boost Water Flow along Tigris River to Ease Iraqs Water Shortage - Asharq Al-awsat - English

Turkeys Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) dealt President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a significant blow on March 22 when the pro-Kurdish party announced that it and its leftist allies will not field a presidential candidate in the May 14 elections.

The move implicitly supports the candidacy of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the main challenger to Erdogan put forward by the six-party Nation Alliance, or Table of Six. It paves the way for a repeat of the strategy that the HDP and main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP), headed by Kilicdaroglu, used in the 2019 mayoral elections. In those elections, Erdogans ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost both Istanbul and Ankara to CHP candidates.

We will fulfil our historical responsibility against one-man rule we will not nominate a candidate in the presidential election, Pervin Buldan, HDP co-chair, said during a news conference, in a jibe at Erdogan.

Turkeys February earthquake disaster forced the HDP to reassess the merits of challenging Erdogan on its own, said Buldan, who met Kilicdaroglu this week. The path towards a bright future and building political democracy is to expand the struggle together, she added.

The HDP is seen as a possible kingmaker in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential polls and many of its voters are said to view Kilicdaroglu, born in a predominantly Kurdish region of Turkey and a member of the Alevi faith, as a sympathetic figure.

If neither Erdogans People Alliance nor the Nation Alliance clearly win over most of the electorate ahead of polling day, the advice given to ethnic minority Kurdish voters by the HDP, the third biggest party in the parliament, which polls at around 10-12%, could be crucial to the election outcome.

The HDPs announcement was expected but still made Erdogans week to go from bad to worse, said Wolfango Piccoli at political risk consultancy Teneo. Over the past few days, Erdogan has suffered some humiliating refusals. A small Islamist party the New Welfare Party (YRP) rejected lending support to Erdogan or to his political alliance in the elections. The YRPs backing would have been valuable for Erdogan during the election campaign as YRP officials have a good network in central Anatolia.

Another rejection came from former finance minister Mehmet Simsek, who after meeting with Erdogan on 20 March stated that he is not interested in active politics. Erdogans Justice and Development Party (AKP) is also struggling to secure applications from candidates to stand in the parliamentary elections.

Piccoli added, however, that Erdogan may take some comfort from the fact that Muharrem Ince is expected to join the presidential race. Ince was the CHPs presidential candidate in 2018, securing 30.6% of the vote as Erdogan achieved re-election, but he split from the CHP two years ago to form the Homeland Party, which has a traditional secularist and nationalist platform.

After submitting an application to the Supreme Electoral Board, Ince must meet certain requirements by 27 March to be allowed to run, including collecting 100K signatures backing his candidacy. Ince, who currently polls at 5-7%, is an energetic but somewhat unpredictable campaigner who could draw anti-Erdogan votes away from the Nation Alliance, thereby raising the chances that the first round of the presidential election would end inconclusively, with no candidates securing more than 50% of the votes. A run-off two weeks later between Kilicdaroglu and Erdogan would give the latter more time to attack his opponent and to seek to divide his alliance, said Piccoli.

The HDP has faced the threat of closure since Turkeys Constitutional Court accepted in 2021 anindictmentseeking to shut down the party over alleged ties to the outlawed militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which it denies.

The Constitutional Court has rejected an application from the HDP to make a defence after the elections, though it remains unclear when the court will make its ruling. In case of a verdict for closure, the HDP is likely to run in the elections under the Green Left Party, which in October replaced its party logo with one similar to that of the HDP, Piccoli noted.

While the HDPs indirect support is a positive for Kilicdaroglus electoral prospects, it will allow Erdogan to attack the CHP leader for partnering with a party that is allegedly close to the PKK. This may drive off some more conservative and nationalist voters from Kilicdaroglus Nation Alliance coalition, he added.

The HDP is asking for a broad commitment to democratisation, Asli Aydintasbas, a fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, was on March 22 reported as saying by the Financial Times, adding:Given that Turkey has gone through this extremely dark period, marked by an ultranationalist, securitised response to the Kurdish issue, that will have consequences, including getting Kurdish politicians out of jail.

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Election blow to Erdogan as Turkey's third biggest party implicitly ... - bne IntelliNews