The 2015 parliamentary elections, no matter their outcome, will be remembered for the fierce public debate about the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP). Ever since the Kurdish political movement announced that the HDP, not independent candidates, will compete in the upcoming races, the otherwise predictable election became much more interesting. In a way, the movement adopted an all-or-nothing strategy, hoping that the gamble will boost their popularity. At the same time, the Kurdish political movement assumed a position akin to the Tea Party in the United States - despite remaining a marginal movement, they seek to dictate the terms by attaining the ability to make or break the government's plans for the next four years. A key component of the HDP's 2015 campaign has been an aggressive outreach effort seeking to convert people from diverse backgrounds to their ranks. Aggressive outreach campaigns, particularly during the lead-up to local and national elections, is a not a new phenomenon, but various parties adopted similar strategies in recent years to shrink the conservative majority.

Ahead of the 2009 local elections, the Republican People's Party (CHP) leadership took a number of steps to engage conservative voters, the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) core constituency. The admission of a handful of women fashioning the niqab to party membership by then-Chairman Deniz Baykal himself made waves until it became clear that the nation's conservatives did not wish to settle for lip service and symbolic gestures while Kemalist hardliners organized high-profile protests to challenge the leadership's outreach efforts.

Most recently, a grand coalition of opposition parties including the Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Movement Party nominated Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, a former secretary-general of the OIC, in the hopes that they could prevent then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from scoring a first-round victory. In the end, the outreach effort proved futile. During the same period, HDP candidate Selahattin Demirtaş seized the opportunity that frustration with the two leading candidates entailed to receive a record number of votes - which encouraged the Kurdish political movement to participate in the parliamentary elections as a party instead of endorsing independent candidates.

With another election cycle fast approaching, political commentators in Turkey eagerly build a hype around the HDP, the parliamentary arm of the Kurdish political movement. The party, optimists suggest the HDP will pass the 10 percent national threshold in the parliamentary elections not only to double the size of its caucus but also to prevent the ruling AK Party from forming another single-party government. Meanwhile, the party's election manifesto reflects an effort to lure away Kurdish conservatives from the AK Party and urban-based millenials from the CHP. As such, the document features references to religious liberties and LGBT rights at the same time.

Although excitement leads to bold statements from the HDP leadership and sympathizers alike, a number of opinion polls indicate that the party remains within 1 percentage point of the national threshold. In other words, whether or not the HDP will pass the threshold remains within the margin of error. There are, however, serious problems with the current outreach effort: First and foremost, the HDP's version of a nationally-appealing platform merely amounts to engaging a small number of urban voters with no strong ties to any political party. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether or not the demands of conservatives and liberals can be reconciled - which is absolutely necessary for the outreach strategy to succeed. Finally, the most recent wave of PKK attacks will understandably raise questions about the Kurdish political movement's commitment to peace and stability.