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Selahattin Demirtaş, the jailed presidential candidate from the Kurdish issue-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), reached out to voters through his wife’s phone on June 6, holding a campaign “rally” from his prison cell in the northeastern province of Edirne. 

Demirtaş on June 6 issued his first, and possibly only, audio message of the campaign, using the weekly 10-minute telephone call he is permitted to make to his wife Başak.

Opposition alliance agreed to intensify talks to prepare a roadmap for the post-election period in order to ensure “a strong parliamentary system,” main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and İYİ (Good) Party leaders stated after a meeting.

“The electorate is expecting us to build a strengthened parliamentary system, in which democracy is fully implemented and parliament is strong,” said İYİ Party leader Meral Akşener, after visiting CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu at the CHP headquarters on June 4.

Turkey's Constitutional Court on Thursday rejected main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) application for the annulment of several articles of the electoral alliance law on the grounds of election security.

The electoral alliance law, allowing political parties to form alliances for the first time in Turkish politics, was ratified by the Parliament on March 13. The court's decision was important as there are only 24 days left for the snap parliamentary and presidential elections in June.

Turkey’s opposition Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has unveiled its election manifesto ahead of the June 24 early elections. The manifesto, with a tagline “National Revival, Blessed Uprising”, calls for reforms to bring economic relief to farmers, retired people and families of disabled, martyred people and veterans. 

The MHP election manifesto emphasized five topics, including "Smart state and public administration", "justice", "combatting corruption", "multifaceted and multi-dimensional foreign policy" and "industrialization and SMEs."

The OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) formally opened its election observation mission in Turkey on May 24 for the snap presidential and parliamentary elections to take place on June 24.

Along with 12 experts based in Ankara, 22 long-term observers and will be deployed throughout the country, OSCE Ambassador Audrey Glover told reporters in Ankara on May 24.

If elected, İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener promised on May 18 “to lift Turkey’s state of emergency the day after the snap elections.” 

“The state of emergency will be lifted the day after I’m elected,” Akşener said, addressing thousands who had gathered for a weekly airing of broadcaster Halk TV’s interview program.

“I will find a trustworthy logistics firm,” she said, declaring her objectives set to be accomplished on June 24 if she gets elected in the snap polls.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s spokesperson İbrahim Kalın has denied any new peace process with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), after a chief presidential advisor suggested that such an initiative could be launched after the June 24 snap election. 

“Our president’s agenda does not include such a solution process. The struggle against the PKK will continue,” Kalın said in a written statement issued on May 18.

The lawyers of Selahattin Demirtaş, the presidential candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), have appealed for his release from jail, saying his official candidacy constitutionally necessitates active participation in the election period.

Demirtaş’s lawyers appealed to the Ankara 19th High Criminal Court on May 15 demanding his release, stating that Turkey’s constitution and European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) legislation stipulates the “right to a free election.”