The Democratic Left Party (DSP) was the latest stopover of ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) officials as they seek to expand a pre-election alliance.
The party’s acting chair, Binali Yıldırım, and deputy chairperson and party spokesperson Ömer Çelik paid a visit to the party’s headquarters in the capital Ankara where they were received by DSP head Önder Aksakal.
Aksakal said they would discuss the proposal to join the People’s Alliance during a board meeting of his party and would announce their decision later.
Speaking to reporters after the visit, Yıldırım said they believed they could act together in the elections.
Though the DSP is a pale shade of its former self now, the party once dominated the Turkish political landscape under the leadership of Bülent Ecevit, prime minister of the coalition government up until 2002. Ecevit’s illness while in office paved the way for early elections in 2002, a massive success for the newly founded AK Party, which has governed Türkiye since then.
“If you are talking about the DSP, you should talk about the late Ecevit and Erbakan,” Yıldırım said.
Ecevit formed a coalition government with the National Salvation Party (MSP) of Necmettin Erbakan in the 1970s before the two leaders went their separate ways. Years later, Erbakan was elected prime minister of another coalition government in the 1990s, which eventually paved the way for another Ecevit-led coalition government. The AK Party was founded by former members of Erbakan’s then-Welfare Party (RP). Yıldırım noted the patriotic policies of Ecevit and Erbakan who spearheaded Turkish intervention in Cyprus in 1974 that secured the safety of Turkish Cypriots facing oppression in the hands of Greek Cypriots backed by a Greek military junta.
“Our parties may have different programs but we have the same sensitivity with the DSP when it comes to the unity of the nation and the country,” Yıldırım said.
On Thursday, Aksakal welcomed Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the main rival of the AK Party in the presidential elections, as the latter also seeks to expand the opposition bloc he leads as chair of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and presidential candidate.
Though the visit and ensuing news conference of Aksakal and Kılıçdaroğlu were marked with kind words, Aksakal hinted that they would not join Kılıçdaroğlu’s People Alliance.
“This is an election where people will decide between those backed by global imperialist circles and the longstanding Turkish state. The DSP has always reacted alongside the reaction of the Turkish nation when it comes to responding to those hoping for a reckoning with 100 years of the Republic of Türkiye,” he said after meeting with Kılıçdaroğlu. He was referring to remarks of Sırrı Sakık, a politician from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which endorses Kılıçdaroğlu’s candidacy.
Sırrı Sakık recently said in televised remarks that they would build a new democratic republic that would replace the 100-year-old republic. The HDP, which boasts around 10% vote, seeks to act as a kingmaker in the upcoming elections. Yet, the party, whose members will run in the elections, under the name of the Green Left Party (YSP) as it faces a shutdown, failed to shed its image as the major supporter of the PKK terrorist group.
