Even though most of the politicians from HDP are secular left-wing Kurds, the candidate list included devout Muslims, socialists, Alevis, Armenians, Assyrians, Azerbaijanis, Circassians, Lazi, Romanis and LGBT activists.

[44][45] The HDP was described by its founding chairpersons as a party that aims to eliminate the exploitation of labour and to fundamentally re-establish a democracy in which honourable and humanitarian individuals can live together as equal citizens.

[46] It was further described as a party aiming to bring about fundamental change to the existing Capitalist system though uniting a wide range of left-wing opposition movements.

[48] Three outstanding parliamentarians of the BDP, Sebahat Tuncel, Sırrı Süreyya Önder, and Ertuğrul Kürkçü abdicated in October 2013 to join the HDP.

The HDP instead aims to collectively represent people of all ethnic or religious backgrounds and to safeguard their civil liberties by bringing about direct democracy and an end to capitalist exploitation.

[58] The HDP's foreign policy also involves opening the border to Armenia[54] which has been closed since 1993 due to Turkey support of Azerbaijan during the first Nagorno-Karabakh War.

The attackers managed to overcome the security personnel and started a fire which caused the explosions of the two gas tubes inside the building.

[71][72] In contrast, HDP politicians also accused the AKP of scaremongering when they claimed that their affiliation to the PKK made them unfit for parliamentary representation.

Selahattin Demirtas, whose older brother is a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, has been accused by pro-Turkish government newspaper Daily Sabah of supporting the PKK's leader Abdullah Öcalan in a 2016 speech in Nowruz.

[78][better source needed] Members of the party have been also accused of providing financial support to the PKK and attending the funeral of killed rebels.

[79][better source needed] On 15 June 2016, the HDP was criticized after its members attended the funeral of Eylem Yaşa, a suicide bomber who had killed police officers and civilians, and injured 51 others in Istanbul.

[80][better source needed] In July 2018, a prosecutor initiated an investigation into the attendance of Feleknas Uca and Mehmet Rüştü Tiryaki to a funeral ceremony of a member of the People's Defence Forces (HPG), the armed wing of the PKK in their electoral district Batman.

[83][32] From September 2016 onward, the Turkish judiciary started submitting HDP supporters, staff and elected officials to anti-terrorism accusations.

On June 5, the Turkish interior ministry announced that 130 people who are outside the country while being suspected of militant links will lose their citizenship unless they return to Turkey within three months and meet government standards.

[90] In 2016, the Interior Ministry filed a criminal complaint about four HDP members, including former deputy Mülkiye Birtane, for making terror propaganda.

Two months later, the membership of two deputies, Osman Baydemir and Selma Irmak, were revoked after they were convicted and sentenced on criminal charges related to the PKK.

According to the Turkish sources, she had been arrested in November 2016 for making terror propaganda and released pending trial, but she had left the country despite her travelling ban.

[97] In September 2020, the Turkish Government ordered the detention of the current mayor of Kars Ayhan Bilgen, together with other prominent HDP figures like the former MPs Ayla Akat Ata or Sırri Süreyya Önder due to their support of the Kobani protests in 2014 which were held in support of the Kurdish population besieged in Kobani by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

[102] Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu was stripped of his parliamentary membership on 17 March 2021[103] due a conviction for spreading "terror propaganda" in a tweet of 2016 supporting eventual peace negotiations with the PKK.

[105] Amongst the politicians who are to be banned from politics figure all former party leaders including Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ and dozens of former and current members of parliament.

As a strong advocate of minority rights, the HDP was involved in negotiations with both the government and also the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan on İmralı Island.

[108] Relations seemed to sour in early April, where the HDP accused the AKP of staging a pre-planned attack against PKK members in the province of Ağrı aimed at gathering more votes in the upcoming general election.

[110] After a raid on the HDP office in Esenyurt, Istanbul in January 2021, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu shared a video flashing images of Abdullah Öcalan, criticizing the European Court of Human Rights for their verdicts.

[116] HDP MP Altan Tan later claimed that his party had miscalculated the consequences of calling for more protests, although his statements were met with opposition from the confederalist KCK organisation.

A message from the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, emphasizing the party's support for a decentralization of power and for the establishment of localized 'people's parliaments', was also read out.

In a speech lasting just under an hour, he proposed that the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) should be disbanded, that compulsory religion lessons in schools should be removed and that Cemevis (the Alevi houses of worship) should receive national recognition.

[131] Pushing for a new constitution, Demirtaş outlined the need to end the non-representation of different cultures, languages, races and beliefs without delay to ensure national stability.

He continued to direct applause to the mother of the murdered teenager Berkin Elvan, who died 269 days after being hit by a tear gas canister during the protests and falling into a coma.

[141] HDP rallied more than expected and gained 13.12% of the total votes cast (6,280,302 out of 46,774,793), breaking the 10% threshold, the minimum set for any Turkish political party to have its representatives sit in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), and securing 81 seats.

This resulted the HDP to be not only the 4th largest political party in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey but also a formidable force in gaining the Turkish overseas votes, ranking 2nd after the AKP with 20.41% and carrying Japan, Ukraine, Greece, Poland, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Canada and the U.K.