Istanbul---The leader of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas has emerged as a potent force in national politics after guiding his party past Turkey's notoriously tough 10-percent threshold to win dozens of seats in legislative elections.
In a bruising campaign, Demirtas successfully reached out to non-Kurdish voters and won praise for his statesman-like response to a bomb attack on a party rally that killed two people just two days before Sunday's polls.
Demirtas will now lead 79 MPs in the new parliament after scooping over 13 percent of the vote.
Having easily cleared the 10-percent barrier, the opposition HDP is now in a position to scuttle President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's plans to change the presidency from a ceremonial role to a strongman executive position.
Demirtas, 42, the sole Turkish politician to rival Erdogan's rhetorical skills, came third in 2014 presidential polls with just under 10 percent of the vote, which emboldened the HDP to run as a party in legislative elections for the first time.
He is credited with transforming the HDP into a mainstream liberal party, broadening its appeal beyond the main voter base of Kurds, who make up 20 percent of Turkey's population, to secular Turks and also women and gays.
In a speech after the results were announced, Demirtas said his party would not form a coalition with the AKP, saying the debate over the presidential system was over.
"We, as the oppressed people of Turkey who want justice, peace and freedom, have achieved a tremendous victory today," Demirtas said in Istanbul.
"It's the victory of workers, the unemployed, the villagers, the farmers. It's the victory of the left," he said in Istanbul.
Demirtas has been the target of fierce campaign attacks by Erdogan, who belittled him a "pretty boy" who is merely a front for the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Erdogan also called Demirtas an "infidel" after he pledged to abolish the government directorate of religious affairs and likened him to a "pop star" because he plays the saz, a Turkish folk lute.
But Demirtas responded to those barbs with trademark serenity, challenging Erdogan by saying: "We, as the HDP, will transform the lion in your heart to a kitten."
AFP
