page_title: June 2015 Turkish general election
section_title: Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP)
hierarchical_section_title: June 2015 Turkish general election / Campaigns / Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP)
caption_attribution_description: English: Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) election propaganda during the 2015 Turkish general election campaign.
context_page_description: The Turkish general election of June 2015 took place on 7 June 2015 in all 85 electoral districts of Turkey to elect 550 members to the Grand National Assembly. This was the 24th general election in the history of the Turkish Republic, electing the country's 25th Parliament. The result was the first hung parliament since the 1999 general election. Unsuccessful attempts to form a coalition government resulted in a snap general election being called for November 2015.
  The Justice and Development Party, which had governed Turkey since 2002, lost its parliamentary majority and won 258 seats with 40.9% of the vote, clearly missing the aimed two-thirds majority for the implementation of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's call for an executive presidency. The main opposition Republican People's Party also fared worse than their 2011 result, and won 132 seats with 25.0% of the vote. The Nationalist Movement Party had been projected to win over many disaffected voters from the AKP. Its share of the vote increased, and the party won 80 seats with 16.3% of the vote.
context_section_description: Emboldened by the 9.77% of the vote won by Peoples' Democratic Party co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş in the 2014 presidential election, The HDP contested the election by fielding party candidates rather than independent candidates. This was controversial since most of the HDP's votes would have been transferred to the AKP in the event that the HDP failed to win above 10% of the vote. There was speculation as to whether the AKP forced Öcalan to pressure the HDP to contest the election as a party in order to boost their own number of MPs. The party charged a ₺2,000 application fee for prospective male candidates, a ₺1,000 fee for female and young candidates under the age of 27 and no fee was collected from disabled applicants. Applications for candidacy were received between 16 February and 2 March.
  According to Habertürk, the party has proposed to field Kurdish candidates in the west and Turkish candidates in the east, which is the opposite of the demographic make-up of the country. The party is also expected to increase its popularity by offering candidacies to famous individuals, such as actor Kadir İnanır. According to a private poll conducted by the HDP in January 2015, the party needs to gather around 600,000 more supporters by the general election in order to surpass the election threshold of 10% and win 72 MPs. Polling organisations such as Metropoll, however, predict that the party would win around 55 MPs if they won more than 10%. HDP candidates hoped that the victory of the left-wing SYRIZA in the 2015 Greek legislative election in January would result in a boost in popularity.
  In order to maximise their votes, the party's co-leader Figen Yüksekdağ announced that the HDP would begin negotiations with the United June Movement, a socialist intellectual and political platform that includes left-wing parties such as the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) and the Labour Party (EMEP). Negotiations between these parties started in early 2015, with the intention of forming a broad alliance rather than a strict political coalition. Although Yüksekdağ ruled out negotiating with the CHP since they were 'closed to dialogue' and Demirtaş was opposed to negotiations, CHP deputy leader Sezgin Tanrıkulu said that the CHP was open for talks and that the two parties had until 7 April to come to an agreement. In the end, no such initiative was taken.
  The HDP party's manifesto pledged to create a Ministry of Women and to establish 8 March International Women's Day as a national holiday. The party also promised to abolish the Presidency of Religious Affairs and the Council of Higher Education while reforming the university examination system to make universities more democratic and affordable. The party has also proposed policies to counter homophobia, to open the border with Armenia, to stop all investment into nuclear power, to raise the minimum wage to ₺1,800, reduce the maximum weekly working hours to 35, to establish a co-Prime Ministerial system for parties with more than one leader and to introduce elections to elect provincial governors (currently appointed by the government). On the issue of a presidential system, HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş stated that the HDP would never support such a constitutional change, adding that he had always firmly opposed a presidential system despite allegations that the HDP had agreed to support the AKP on the matter behind closed doors.
caption: HDP election propaganda in Ankara, 5 June 2015.
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