Imprisoned Demirtas won't stand for HDP leadership again

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – The imprisoned Co-chair of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas on Thursday announced he was not going to run for the leadership of his party again in an upcoming congress set for Feb. 11.

In a letter from a prison in the Turkish province of Edirne where authorities keep him, Demirtas said he was not someone “of status or high office” but of duty and responsibility.

A week earlier, he ruled out running for President in the 2019 elections in an interview with German media.

Demirtas’ withdrawal from the political scene could prove fateful for his left-wing party, the larger Kurdish movement in Turkey, and the opposition as a whole.

Under his leadership, the HDP became the first pro-Kurdish party to pass Turkey’s 10 percent-high parliamentary electoral threshold in 2015 elections, almost costing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) another chance to form a single-party government.

He also forcefully, albeit unsuccessfully, opposed strengthening Erdogan with executive powers to circumvent legislative check and balances.

HDP’s other Co-leader is currently Serpil Kemalbay.

The former Co-leader Figen Yuksekdag, who along with Demirtas shared the earlier electoral success, remains in prison since their arrest in late 2016.

“I will continue to do all I can for the success of the HDP, our party that we have created with so much great effort. Whatever my circumstances may be, I will continue to be a servant of the struggle for democracy, at the command of my party and my people,” Demirtas said in his letter relayed by his lawyers.

He has been leading the HDP since its foundation in late 2012 and, before that, he was co-leader of the now dissolved Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

“Do not forget that I, 27 years ago, as the son of a poor worker, took part in the struggle for freedom, and I served, only with the support and belief of the people, as Co-Chairperson for eight years,” he continued.

The Kurdish leader, who was instrumental during the talks and ceasefire between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish government, has described his continued detention as “being a hostage” to Erdogan’s plan of “forging a one-man rule” in the country.

Once branded as “the Kurdish Obama” by international media outlets for his swift rise, the 44-year-old former human rights lawyer managed to gain support from 9.7 percent of voters from across Turkey in 2014 presidential elections.

Prosecutors have asked for up to 142 years for Demirtas, and already sentenced him and several other lawmakers to decades of imprisonment on various charges of separatism and terror-related allegations.

On Tuesday, a court in the Turkish capital of Ankara fined him 15,000 Liras (3,980 USD) over a 2016 speech in which the judges deemed he insulted Erdogan.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany