Pro-Kurdish opposition party election workers held as Turkey vote approaches
As Turkey's contentious elections near, the only opposition party with any chance of keeping full control out of the president's hands is being hit hard with raids and rampant detentions.
With only days left before landmark elections in Turkey, pressure is intensifying on the one party that could swing the outcome, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP). More than 50 party members and canvassers were detained in separate early morning raids in the eastern province of Erzurum, the southeastern province of Sirnak and in the western provinces of Bursa and Izmir, the opposition daily Evrensel reported. Among those detained were senior figures from the Democratic Regions Party (DBP), the HDP’s sister organization in the mainly Kurdish southeastern region.
In Bursa, four of the HDP’s ballot box monitors were also detained. The legal grounds are unclear but the political motive is plain, HDP officials say: It's to torpedo the party’s efforts to campaign and secure the minimum 10% of the national vote required to win seats in the parliament. Should the pro-Kurdish bloc, which commands the affection of a swelling number of non-Kurds, breach the 10% barrier, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development party would lose its parliamentary majority.
