The politician, imprisoned since 2016, came third in the 2014 and 2018 presidential elections
May 31. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The prominent Turkish politician Selahattin Demirtas, a member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and imprisoned in Edirne, announced on Wednesday that he is leaving politics, after his criticism of the party for its strategy for the presidential and legislative elections. recently held in Turkey.
“While I continue the fight through the resistance together with my comrades in prison, I am withdrawing from active politics at this stage,” he said, before presenting “sincere apologies” for “not being able to present policies like the ones that the people deserve.”
“I promise to correct these deficiencies with practical efforts,” he stated in a message posted on his account on the social network Twitter in which he thanked them for the “constructive criticism” against his paper. “I hope to see you in my days in freedom”, she has settled.
Demirtas, who was co-chairman of the HDP between 2014 and 2018, came third in the 2014 presidential elections. He also ran for president in 2018 despite having been in prison for two years, from where he carried out his campaign policy. The politician was also in third place in these elections.
The politician was arrested in 2016 after the approval of a measure for the withdrawal of parliamentary immunity as a result of the coup attempt that year, which resulted in nearly 250 deaths, after which he was charged with various charges of “terrorism” for his alleged support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), something he rejects, and insults to the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Demirtas has been critical of the HDP strategy in the latest elections, in which the pro-Kurdish party decided not to present any candidate and support the leader of the opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, defeated on Sunday in the second lap. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its partners have also won an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections.
