TURKEY’s opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) vowed to  end “institutionalised tyranny” in the fight for peace, democracy and justice as it unveiled its election strategy in the capital Ankara today.

The HDP is standing on a progressive platform, seeking to counter the dictatorial regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and aiming to bring an end to Turkey’s wars and occupation and a democratic solution to the so-called Kurdish question.

This, the party said, is “the most deeply rooted issue Turkey needs to resolve,” calling on parliament to lay the foundations for dialogue through negotiations.

At today’s press briefing, the HDP for a “democracy alliance” and a new “people’s” constitution to bring about an urgent transformation of society.

It vowed to end the current system of “one-man rule” by scrapping the executive presidential system introduced under a much criticised rigged 2016 constitutional referendum, which, the HDP says, extended an “institutionalised tyranny.”

The HDP is facing intense pressure, with a case for the party’s shutdown brought by the neofascist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) due to be heard later this year.

And a trial, known as the Kobane case, is currently under way in which prosecutors are seeking life in prison for 108 leading HDP officials.

They are charged with 37 counts of homicide after Turkish security officials and government-linked paramilitaries shot dead HDP supporters during protests in 2014.

The party is targeted by the state for its support for a resolution to the so-called Kurdish question; its detractors accuse it of being linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Kurds make up about 20 per cent of the Turkish population and have suffered generations of oppression, massacres and marginalisation, banned from speaking their own language or practising their own culture.

Fierce debate was triggered recently when Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Turkey’s oldest political party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), said the issue could be resolved through dialogue with the HDP as a “legitimate organisation” represented in parliament.

But former HDP co-chair Sezai Temelli’s remarks were branded irresponsible when he insisted that the only way to resolve the Kurdish question was via talks with jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.

While HDP spokeswoman Ebru Gunay insisted that parliament was the place for “a democratic and peaceful solution,” as agreed by Mr Ocalan, she said that politicians cannot ignore the standing of the PKK leader.

The foundation of the HDP party in 2012, uniting communists, trade unionists, environmentalists and the Kurdish movement, represented a major step forward for democracy in Turkey.

But it has faced severe repression, which escalated after it secured 80 seats in 2015 in Turkey’s single-chamber parliament, the grand assembly, ending the parliamentary majority of Mr Erdogan’s Justice & Development Party (AKP).

Some 20,000 HDP members have been detained since 2016, 10,000 of whom were jailed, including more than 200 elected officials and MPs.