Left and Kurds Prepare for Parliament
For the first constituency, which is the Asian side of Europe, the leader of the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), Ufuk Uras, has been named.
The pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) has said that the third candidate in Istanbul whom it would support is a woman: Sabahat Tuncer, the DTP's women's parliament speaker, is currently being detained in prison. She was arrested in November 2006 when the police raided a local headquarter of the DTP.
Her arrest was described as a violation of the right to organize by the Turkish Human Rights Foundation.
Oran: A different voice
In an interview with bianet right after his announcement, Oran spoke of what independent left MPs could achieve. He acknowledged that with a five-minute time limit to speeches, the aim was to question ideas that were taken for granted in parliament.
As an example he spoke of the debate on whether Turkey should carry out military operations in Northern Iraq. He pointed to the fact that 30 previous operations, carried out with the consent of Americans and Iraqi Kurds, had brought no results.
He said that the 10% electoral threshold suppressed alternative voices, and that it was precisely his aim to be a different voice.
In Oran's opinion, the "Kurdish issue" is a priority. He also emphasized the urgency of environmental questions, "because when the planet is dying, we can neither have a class struggle nor a war of religions".
Oran added that women, Kurds and Alevites were three oppressed groups who faced the danger of being labeled "different" and thus not taken seriously by anyone else. He said that his advantage was that he could speak out for all kinds of groups without being considered one-sided.
DTP support
Meanwhile, the pro-Kurdish DTP has announced which independent candidates it will support. Apart from the above-mentioned Istanbul candidates, the DTP is also supporting candidates together with the left in other big cities.
Because the DTP fears that some of its own candidates will be forced to withdraw their candidature for legal reasons, it has announced a high number of candidates in the South-eastern towns of Hakkari, Diyarbakir, Agri and Sirnak.
The co-leaders of the DTP, Aysel Tugluk and Ahmet Türk are standing in Diyarbakir and Mardin respectively. Several former Democracy Party (DEP) MPs are also candidates: Hatip Dicle in Diyarbakir, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak in Sirnak, nad Mahmut Alinak in Kars. Leyla Zana has not applied for candidacy, but there are more than ten women candidates. (TK/EÜ/AG)