Ambiguous deal between Kılıçdaroğlu and the Kurdish Peoples' Party

The presidential candidate of the six-party opposition alliance in Turkey, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, received another additional boost to enhance his chances of winning the presidential elections that will be held in parallel with the legislative elections on May 14, after the decision of the Labor and Freedom Alliance led by the Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party not to present a candidate for the presidency. Although the Kurdish party, which may play the role of kingmaker in this election, did not explicitly state that it would support Kılıçdaroğlu, his abandonment of a presidential candidate came after a meeting between its co-chairs in Kılıçdaroğlu last weekend, which resulted in an undeclared understanding under which the HDP would support Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential elections.

It remains unclear what price the Kurdish party received for this support and will be the subject of considerable internal debate in the remainder of the elections, but some of the promises made by the six-party alliance in the joint policy paper, which meet the goals of the HDP, such as pledging to prevent the closure of the party if the opposition comes to power, and abandoning the guardian system for Kurdish-majority municipalities whose heads were removed by the government over accusations of links to the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), have paved the ground. For electoral cooperation between the two parties. Moreover, Kılıçdaroğlu's pledge to re-debate the Kurdish question in parliament was an additional impetus for this cooperation.

However, the deliberate ambiguity in the understanding between the HDP and Kılıçdaroğlu stemmed from two main motives:

• Although the partnership between the two sides is not the result of the current elections, and dates back to the local elections in 2019 when the HDP's support for the opposition contributed to its victory in major municipalities, this partnership remained unannounced. This is due to Kılıçdaroğlu's fears that a declared partnership with the party could lead to the disintegration of the six-party alliance, especially since the nationalist Good Party, the second largest party in the alliance, opposes such a partnership because it fears it will affect its national base. Kılıçdaroğlu also received the tacit blessing of the Good Party to proceed with the understanding with the HDP as a bilateral understanding and does not amount to the Kurdish party's involvement in the six-party table. In addition to the fact that the leader of the Good Party, Meral Aksener, realized that it was difficult for the opposition to win the presidential elections without the support of the HDP, the recent crisis in the alliance against the backdrop of the joint presidential candidate led to Aksener's temporary withdrawal from the alliance before returning to it, put her in a weak position and limited her ability to resist pressure from Kılıçdaroğlu and other parties in the alliance to open up to the Kurdish party.
• Second, although the HDP does not share a clear political ideology with the six-party table, and the same applies to the six parties in the table, it shares with them at least one main goal: ending Erdogan's rule. The party also remains likely skeptical of Kılıçdaroğlu's ability to deliver on the promises (declared and undeclared) it has made, and is contingent on shifting tacit support to it publicly on obtaining concrete guarantees and pressuring other members of the six-party table in the remainder of the elections to explicitly recognize the Kurdish party as a partner of the six-party table.

Another premise in the party's motives for tacit support to Kiıçdaroğlu is that it seeks to keep its electoral position vague until the map of party alliances is fully clear and the maximum gains are obtained from Kılıçdaroğlu. Although Kılıçdaroğlu has a strong chance of defeating Erdogan in the election, that victory is still not guaranteed, and some of the most credible polls still suggest that Erdogan can still win. In this sense, the HDP is also monitoring the movements of the party alliance map to come up with a clear position to strengthen the role it aspires to in this competition, which is to play the role of kingmaker.

Regardless of the nature of the understanding concluded between Kılıçdaroğlu and the HDP, it has made the party an indispensable partner of the six-party table, and this partnership is likely to play a key role in shaping the internal and foreign policies that the opposition intends to pursue if it comes to power, especially with regard to the approach to the internal Kurdish issue and the conflict that Turkey has been waging for some time with the PKK at home and abroad and with its Syrian arm, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). Although part of the deal between Kılıçdaroğlu and the HDP seems clearer, especially on the issue of the future status of the Kurdish party, the abolition of the regent system, and the discussion of the Kurdish question in parliament, the other unseen part of this deal is more important.

While the six-party alliance seemed liberated from what the deal imposes, especially in aspects related to including the party in the six-party table and giving it ministerial portfolios in the future government, the significant gains that the Kurdish party is looking for are not mainly related to power-sharing. What is clear about this vague deal is that the HDP will play a more crucial role in policies that are more important to Turkey's future than the other parties involved in the six-party alliance, especially in terms of security and counterterrorism.

The most pressing questions in this deal concern whether Kılıçdaroğlu promised the HDP to promote autonomy in Kurdish-majority areas and halt Turkish military operations against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria and the PKK in northern Iraq.

Beyond these questions to which no clear answers can be found, it is important to approach the understanding between Kılıçdaroğlu and the HDP from the perspective of electoral need first. Kılıçdaroğlu may find himself free from the potentially controversial and problematic points of this deal if he comes to power, but the HDP's strong stance will remain in place after the elections. Even if Kılıçdaroğlu manages to win the presidential contest in his favor, the six-party opposition alliance alone seems powerless to achieve a parliamentary majority that would help it amend the constitution, abolish the presidential system, and shift to an enhanced parliamentary system, showing that the need of the alliance for the HDP will remain after the elections.

Kılıçdaroğlu has proven adept at gathering a formation from a group of political parties that are radically ideologically different from each other, forging under-the-table cooperation with the Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in the recent local elections, and has again succeeded in continuing this cooperation in the upcoming elections, but his ability to continue playing on these contradictions will be in doubt when he transitions from opposition leadership to Turkey's presidency.