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Turkey's Kurdish party fumes at controversial
electoral bill
13.5.2007 |
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May
13, 2007
ANKARA, -- Turkey's main Kurdish party called
on the president Saturday to veto a controversial
bill widely seen as a bid to hinder Kurdish
politicians seeking parliamentary seats in the July
22 elections.
"I hope the president will veto this unfair action,"
Ahmet Turk, the chairman of the Democratic Society
Party (DTP), was quoted as saying by Anatolia news
agency.
The bill, approved by parliament Thursday, is a move
that "blocks the way of democratic politics" and
hampers efforts for a peaceful resolution of the
two-decade Kurdish conflict in the country, he said.
"We want to enter parliament," he said. "We want all
of Turkey's problems, and primarily the Kurdish
question, to be resolved on democratic ground."
The bill, which needs the approval of President
Ahmet Necdet Sezer to come into force, amends a
constitutional provision relating to independent
candidates.
It was passed a day after the DTP decided to field
independents rather than run as a party in the July
22 election to bypass the 10-percent national
threshold that allows parties access to parliament.
Once they are voted in as independents, the Kurdish
deputies can regroup under the DTP banner.
Under the bill, the names of independent candidates
will figure on the same ballot paper as all the
parties in the running, contrary to current practice
under which their names appear on separate voting
slips.
The measure is widely seen as a bid to obstruct
voters in the mainly Kurdish southeast, where many
are illiterate or do not speak Turkish, and are
likely to have trouble picking their candidate's
name from the long list of parties and other
independents.
Many Kurds have become legislators in Turkey as
members of mainstream parties, but pro-Kurdish
movements failed to overcome the 10-percent national
threshold despite usually dominating in the
southeast, where they traditionally win the local
elections.
Kurdish parties are routinely accused of being
instruments of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
which has led a bloody separatist insurgency in the
southeast since 1984 that has claimed more than
37,000 lives.
Turk said the new amendment would plunge the
elections into "chaos" if the DTP was to field
thousands of independent candidates.
"In what envelopes would they put the (huge) ballot
papers then? We do not want to create chaos and
instability, but we have this opportunity," he said.
President Sezer has a 15-day period to decide
whether to return the bill to parliament or to sign
it into law.
AFP
** The use of the term "Kurdistan" is vigorously
rejected due to its alleged political implications
by the Republic of Turkey, which does not recognize
the existence of a "Turkish Kurdistan" Southeast
Turkey.
Others estimate over 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Iran, Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Before August 2002, the Turkish government placed
severe restrictions on the use of Kurdish language,
prohibiting the language in education and broadcast
media.
The Kurdish alphabet is still not recognized
in Turkey, and use of the Kurdish letters X, W, Q
which do not exist in the Turkish
alphabet has led to judicial persecution in 2000 and
2003
The Kurdish flag flown officially in Iraqi Kurdistan
but unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag
is banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it
is a criminal offence"
Southeastern Turkey:
North Kurdistan ( Kurdistan-Turkey)
wikipedia
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