Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday shared on Twitter a chart comparing the two main political alliances for Turkey’s upcoming local elections that accused the opposition of links to terrorist organisations.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is in alliance with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) for the March 31 municipal vote, in which the Turks will elect 30 city mayors, along with district mayors and municipal councils.
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) forged an alliance with the nationalist Good Party for the polls. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) nominated candidates mainly in south-east provinces in the country, where the Turkish government replaced HDP mayors elected in 2014 with appointees. In some districts, the HDP also supports the candidates of the Islamist Felicity Party and the CHP.
The alliance between the AKP and the MHP is called the People’s Alliance, as it was in presidential and parliamentary elections last year. Erdoğan calls the alliance among the opposition parties the “Contempt Alliance”.
While the People’s Alliance aims to serve the Turkish people, according to Erdoğan’s tweet , the opposition alliance is guided by Kandil and Pennsylvania, referring to the headquarters of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), in northern Iraq, and the location of Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom Turkey accuses of masterminding the failed 2016 coup.
The PKK has been fighting an insurgency inside Turkey for more than three decades, and is labelled a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. Ankara also views the Gülen movement as a terrorist organisation.
Erdoğan’s post said the ultimate aim of opposition parties is to help these terrorist groups infiltrate local governments and the bureaucracy.
Source: Ahval News
