Selahattin Demirtaş was announced as a candidate for the Presidency on 30 June. In a campaign dominated by the peace process with Kurdish rebels, he claimed on 5 August in Van that the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had not done enough to bring forward promised legislation, and that the process would collapse immediately if the AKP did not do more to bring lasting peace in the southeast. He is the co-leader of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), serving alongside Figen Yüksekdağ.
