Turkiye: Kurdish party declares support for Erdogan’s presidential bid

The leader of the Kurdish Islamist Free Cause Party (Huda-Par) in Turkiye declared on Saturday that it will support President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s candidacy in the presidential election scheduled to be held on 14 May. Huda-Par’s chairman, Zekeriya Yapicioglu, made the announcement at a press conference following a meeting of the party’s executive board.

According to Yapicioglu, Erdogan and opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), will dominate the presidential race. That is why Huda-Par has decided not to have a candidate in the election.

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Huda-Par was founded in 2012 on the ashes of the outlawed Kurdish Hezbollah. It has no connections with the Lebanese movement of the same name.

Fatih Erbakan, the chairman of the New Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah Partisi), said last Friday that it is mulling over joining the People’s Alliance led by Erdogan for Turkiye’s upcoming election. “We will discuss the issue with our authorised bodies,” said Erbakan after a meeting with the Deputy Chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party, Binali Yildirim.

Erbakan is the son of late former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, the pioneer of Islamic politics in Turkiye. Erdogan and several other senior officials of the Justice and Development Party were either his aides or supporters in the past.

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