The Green Left Party Women’s Assembly announced its declaration at a meeting attended by hundreds of women in the Turkish capital Ankara on Sunday, where Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Pervin Buldan emphasised that the 14 May elections were a vote for a regime for women.
Buldan said, “We come for equal representation at all levels of administration, representation and decision-making mechanisms, for a system of co-presidency, for the protection and development of all rights, to make Law 6284 [the Law to Protect Family and Prevent Violence against Women] inviolable and to implement the Istanbul Convention effectively.”
The preface of the bilingual and purple-covered booklet of the Election Declaration prepared by women members of the Green Left Party, who launched their election campaign with the slogan “Dîsa jin, dîsa jiyan” (Woman again, life again) in Kurdish and “Buradayız kadınlarla değiştireceğiz” (We are here, we will create change with women) in Turkish, reads as follows:
“We will increase our solidarity through unity, and on 14 May we will send off the disastrous government of the one-man regime. We are coming with our anger to demand accountability, to build a new life, to create change with women. We will change the second century of the Republic with women!”
The Green Left Party Women’s Assembly said that strong democracy is only possible with women’s freedom and the representation of pluralism, and emphasised that women are standing up to say ‘enough is enough’ against those who ignore them, exclude them from decision-making mechanisms, lock them in their homes, interfere in their lives and exploit their bodies and their labour.
Meanwhile, the party also shared two women’s songs for the 2023 elections, in Turkish and in Kurdish.
Imprisoned former co-chair of the HDP Figen Yüksekdağ, posted a message to the Green Left Party 2023 Women’s Election Declaration meeting on Twitter through her lawyers from Kandıra Women’s Closed Prison No. 1. “We are also ‘Here’. We are with you, shoulder to shoulder,” Yüksekdağ said.
