In boost to opposition, Kurdish party won’t field candidate

By SUZAN FRASER
Associated Press

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s pro-Kurdish political party and its allies say they won’t field a candidate to run in the country’s May 14 presidential election. The move could boost an opposition bloc’s chances of unseating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. An opposition coalition has united behind the candidacy of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the secularist Republican People’s Party. The coalition has vowed to dismantle a presidential system that has concentrated a vast amount of powers in Erdogan’s hands. In announcing on Wednesday that the Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, wouldn’t put up its own candidate, a party co-chairperson didn’t express outright support for Kilicdaroglu, but the decision was widely seen as the party’s tacit backing of the anti-Erdogan bloc.