For the first time, voters in Turkey will cast ballots on Sunday in simultaneous presidential and parliamentary polls. The process is in line with last year's constitutional changes that will transform the country's parliamentary system to an executive presidential one by granting the top office increased powers. [...]
Demirtas, along with several other former HDP members of parliament, has been in jail since November 2016, accused of having links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). His trial began in December last year and, if convicted, he faces up to 142 years in prison. Demirtas denies the charges. [...]
Opinion polls have suggested that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party might not achieve a parliamentary majority if the HDP manages to gain more than 10 percent of votes on Sunday, which is the unusually high threshold required for a party to enter the 600-seat assembly. [...]
Etyen Mahcupyan, a columnist and former adviser to the AK Party leader, said that secular voters might back the HDP at the ballot box to make sure that AK Party loses its majority in parliament - as it did in June 2015. [...]
"There is an increasingly widespread view that the HDP will surpass 10 percent of the votes. And this might decrease the number of the CHP voters changing their votes for the HDP," added Mahcupyan, who added that Kurds represent about 15 percent of the electorate in Turkey.
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