Pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (HEDEP) intends to oust government appointed trustees from municipalities across Turkey in the upcoming local elections, and pledged to stand united with the public against the government’s undemocratic practice of trustee-appointment, the party’s co-chair, Tülay Hatimoğulları asserted on Tuesday.
🔴 Pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (HEDEP) pledges to oust government appointed trustees from municipalities across Turkey in the upcoming local elections.#HEDEP | #Turkey | #Elections
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— MedyaNews (@1MedyaNews) December 5, 2023
Hatimoğulları, addressing the local election campaign, highlighted the party’s swift and extensive efforts to win back seats in both Kurdish-majority regions and the west of Turkey. She reaffirmed their decision to field candidates in all areas of the country. Party spokeswoman Ayşegül Doğan had announced on Monday that HEDEP will be fielding their own candidates independently, as a stand alone party, in the upcoming local elections, departing from the party’s previous approach.
Emphasising a determination to win back municipalities in Kurdish regions where trustees were appointed, Hatimoğulları stated, “Those rubbing their hands in anticipation for regional municipalities must know that they will not find sustenance there. Our people will embrace our party in such a way that we will remove those trustees… We will create a protective shield against the trustees with our living bodies and our people; because those lands are ours, not the trustee’s. Our sweat is on those lands, and we will not surrender it to the trustees.”
In her campaign speech, Hatimoğulları reiterated HEDEP’s active presence in western Turkey. “We are fully engaged in the West. We will be on the streets until there is no one left whose hand we haven’t shaken, no door we haven’t knocked on. The people’s will shall triumph over the thieves of will. On 31 March, we will send AKP-MHP [Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) ruling coalition] trustees to their own pits. We will reclaim what is ours.”
She also touched on the removal of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB) management, criticising the spread of trustee politics across the country. “They practised trustee appointments in [Kurdish-led] municipalities, but now it has spread across Turkey,” Hatimoğulları noted, adding that trustees are routinely appointed in any professional chambers, unions, institutions and universities that do not align with the policies of the ruling coalition.