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Turkey's Minorities Join Race for Parliament

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  • Turkey's Minorities Join Race for Parliament

    Assyrian International News Agency AINA
    April 11 2015

    Turkey's Minorities Join Race for Parliament

    By Fehim Tastekin
    AL Monitor


    Selahattin Demirtas, co-chairman of the pro-Kurdish People's Democracy
    Party, addresses his party members as he starts his campaign for
    Turkey's June 7 parliamentary elections, during a meeting in Ankara,
    April 10, 2015 (REUTERS/Umit Bektas).Turkey's political parties
    announced their ambitious candidate lists this week for the June 7
    general elections, which will deliver a fateful verdict on President
    Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ambitions to install a presidential system. In
    a remarkable development, the parties have opened up to minority
    groups, which have been largely sidelined from politics, excluding the
    early years of the modern republic. Members of the Greek, Armenian,
    Yazidi and Roma communities have been given favorable spots on the
    slates, raising the prospect of strong minority representation in the
    next parliament.

    The pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party (HDP), on a quest to become a
    nationwide party appealing to voters beyond its traditional Kurdish
    base, has fielded three Armenian candidates -- Garo (Karabet) Paylan,
    Murad Mihci and Filor Uluk Benli -- in addition to two Yazidis, Ali
    Atalan and Feleknaz Uca, and the Syriac Erol Dora. The list of the
    ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) features Armenian
    journalist Markar Esayan.

    The biggest surprise came from the main opposition Republican People's
    Party (CHP), where an in-house struggle is underway between
    neo-nationalist and reformist wings. The party fielded ethnic Armenian
    lawyer Selina Ozuzun Dogan as its top candidate in Istanbul's 2nd
    District, a move that sparked controversy within the CHP, where the
    camp denying the Armenian genocide holds the upper hand. CHP Chairman
    Kemal Kilicdaroglu reportedly had to make a choice between Dogan and
    Goksel Gulbey, head of the Association for Struggle Against False
    Armenian Claims, which has been at the forefront of genocide denial
    campaigns. Convinced that fielding both would be a contradiction, the
    CHP leader favored Dogan over Gulbey, who had applied to run in the
    eastern province of Igdir.


    http://www.aina.org/news/20150410202104.htm



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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