Is Kurdish Democratic Movement left wing or right wing?

On economic organisation Kurdish Democratic Movement scores −06 on a scale from −10 (common ownership) to +10 (private property and markets). On social and cultural order it scores −07. A single left–right figure combines these and four further measurements that move independently, which is why the atlas reports six.

Is Kurdish Democratic Movement authoritarian?

On the organisation of power, which measures whether authority is dispersed among institutions that can stop each other or concentrated in a single centre, Kurdish Democratic Movement scores −05. Co-chair gender parity in every office; elected mayors repeatedly replaced by state-appointed administrators; leaders imprisoned.

Atlas / Organisations / Kurdish Democratic Movement

Kurdish Democratic Movement

HDP / DEM · 2012– · Turkey · Left Pluralist · Electoral party · coding confidence medium

−06ECcollective

−07CUpluralist

−05AUpluralist

−06SClocal

−02IDuniversal

00CHbalanced

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Radical democracy, minority language rights, gender co-chairing, decentralisation to regions rather than Kurdish separatism.

Economic model

Redistribution, rural investment, ecological opposition to dam projects.

Organisation of powers

Co-chair gender parity in every office; elected mayors repeatedly replaced by state-appointed administrators; leaders imprisoned.

Reading note

Shares doctrine with the Rojava administration while operating entirely through Turkish elections — the same programme at opposite ends of the method axis.

Check a claim about Kurdish Democratic Movement. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

Open in the atlas

The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored −06

Coded −6: redistribution and rural investment.

Programme textProgramme commitments to public investment in the south-east and to ecological opposition to dam projects.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored −07

Coded −7: gender co-chairing and minority language rights as constitutive commitments.

Programme textEvery party office is held jointly by a woman and a man as a rule of the statute.

AU · Organisation of power · scored −05

Coded −5: democratic autonomy and decentralisation against a centralising state.

Documented act or statuteElected mayors were replaced by state-appointed trustees in dozens of municipalities from 2016; MPs were stripped of immunity and imprisoned.

SC · Scale of decision · scored −06

Coded −6: regional self-government rather than separatism.

Programme textProgramme commits to democratic autonomy within Turkey rather than to an independent state.

ID · Rule of membership · scored −02

Coded −2: a multi-ethnic party seeking rights for all minorities.

Documented act or statuteThe party has run Armenian, Yazidi, Assyrian and Roma candidates alongside Kurdish ones.

CH · Method and tempo · scored 00

Coded at zero: entirely electoral, and repeatedly prosecuted.

Documented act or statuteA closure case seeking to ban the party was pending before the constitutional court for years.

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

Turkey

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Kurdish Democratic Movement. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/dem_hdp/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.