Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Co-chair Pervin Buldan has said their election campaign will aim to convince some 200,000 Kurds who failed to vote in a previous election in March to support the opposition’s İstanbul mayoral candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu, in the re-run poll, BBC Turkish service reported.
Buldan held a press conference on Friday and said the HDP would be campaigning for the İstanbul election re-run on June 23 with clear support for the opposition.
She told reporters that some Kurdish voters did not want to support the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the March 31 election, hinting at past grievances between secular nationalists and Kurds.
However, they felt the injustice that the opposition has been subjected to with the election board’s cancelation of the results, Buldan said, adding that their endorsement would constitute support for the democratic forces of Turkey aiming to stop President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s party.
According to the March 31 election results, some 1.7 million people in İstanbul failed to cast votes.