True. DEHAP is mainly a Kurdish Party but it is not just a Kurdish Party. Many Turkish leftists joined forces with the Kurdish party HADEP to form DEHAP, although HADEP is by far the largest component of it. Let us see what tomorrow's election will bring us.
Best, Sabri +++++++++ Kurdish Party Challenges Turkish Polls Fri Nov 1,11:04 AM ET By Ayla Jean Yackley HAZRO, Turkey (Reuters) - The fragile peace that has fallen on Turkey's war-scarred and poverty-stricken southeast has brought neither jobs, new industry nor a return to the former pastoral way of life. Many here instead count the peace dividend in a new sense of freedom to cast their votes for the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party, or DEHAP, in Sunday's general election. "We can easily support DEHAP now. This time we do not have to fear what our votes will cost us," said Murat Celik, a 25-year-old shopkeeper waving a yellow DEHAP flag at a campaign rally in Hazro, a small, dusty town squeezed in a narrow valley between rocky cliffs in Diyarbakir province. When residents last went to the ballot box three years ago, battles between the Turkish army and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatists still raged in the surrounding mountains. Voters felt intimidated, Celik said, warned by soldiers against backing DEHAP's predecessor HADEP, accused by the authorities of acting as a front for the PKK. "But this year the Kurdish identity is out in the open," said Celik as women dressed in traditional costume danced in large circles to the music of shrill pipes and drums. More than 30,000 people, most of them Kurds, died in nearly two decades of fighting, but the violence has waned since the capture of PKK commander Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. Emergency rule, in place in much of the southeast since 1987, expires in the last provinces at the end of November. Turkey has in recent months liberalized strict bans on the use of the Kurdish language in broadcasting and education and abolished the death penalty, hoping the steps will win it entry talks with the European Union (news - web sites). "We have emerged from those chaotic years, and the political atmosphere is kinder, gentler," said Osman Baydemir, a DEHAP candidate for parliament from Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the predominately Kurdish southeast. "We are able to visit the towns and villages where we were previously barred, we are allowed to hold large meetings. This has caused a huge explosion in our support." STORMY PAST Polls show the left-wing DEHAP on the cusp of a 10 percent threshold of the national vote which parties must clear to enter parliament. The prospect of a party in parliament with its roots in Kurdish nationalism has shocked the political establishment. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, whose own party falls far short of the threshold, says a DEHAP victory would pose "serious problems for the regime." HADEP quit the election in September, fearing it would be outlawed before the vote in a case pending before the Constitutional Court. It was charged in 1999 with maintaining ties with the PKK. The electoral board in September barred DEHAP leaders Murat Bozlak and Akin Birdal from standing in the election because both men have served prison sentences for speeches they made in the 1990s. The party itself escaped a ban in October after the electoral board rejected the chief prosecutor's charges that DEHAP had failed to meet technical criteria to contest the race. Human Rights Watch said in a report this week that these incidents had cast a cloud over the election. Kurdish parliamentarians have had a stormy history in Turkish politics. Four former MPs have been behind bars since 1994 serving 15-year jail sentences after their party was outlawed. The defiant tone they set, including a refusal to take an oath of allegiance to the republic, has been tempered. "DEHAP has had an effective role in softening the environment by making the appropriate arguments," said Baydemir. "People no longer see DEHAP as an enemy movement that under no circumstances would they vote for. We are no longer the party that attracts the greatest opposition," he says. A central plank of DEHAP's campaign is speeding up civil rights reforms needed if Turkey is to go forward its bid to join the European Union. It also promises to ease measures imposed by an unpopular multi-billion International Monetary Fund bail-out after a recession which has cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. "The compass has shifted, people see the process of change as inescapable," said DEHAP candidate Mahmut Sakar. "Those who want democracy and a future in the EU don't just speak Kurdish." Despite winning outright majorities in much of the southeast, HADEP attracted just 4.8 percent of the national vote in 1999. "What will make or break the day for DEHAP in this election is whether they convince non-Kurdish voters they are legitimate and good for Turkish democracy," said one western diplomat. TURKEY'S "STEPCHILDREN" "Everyone knows DEHAP will win in the southeast," said a local official of a center-right party. "The race is for second place. DEHAP won't pass the barrier and we'll be elected." DEHAP, ironically, could by its success or failure determine the nature of the government in Ankara. If DEHAP fails to clear the hurdle, its votes will be discarded. Parliamentary seats in the region will then be distributed among parties able to enter the assembly. If it makes it, the front-running Justice and Development Party (AKP), second-placed in the region as a whole, would suffer the biggest losses. The prospect of failing the barrier embitters many. "That amounts to stealing our votes. How can we call this a democracy if no one represents us in parliament and the Kurdish problem remains unsolved?" said Orhan Toptas at a teahouse outside of the bustling DEHAP office in Haroz. "The state does not take responsibility for us. They treat us like stepchildren. Life is insufferable here." Gendarme officers flank the winding road that leads to sun-baked Hazro. A 14th century mosque atop a ridge dominates the town of 8,000 people who live in old stone houses. Livelihoods scratched out from farming and animal husbandry have been devastated by the separatist conflict. Per capita income in the province is a quarter of the more prosperous west. Unemployment tops 70 percent. "The war is over, but we are left with the ruins, with the poverty," said 65-year-old Serif Cakmak. "Rebuilding this region may be too large a task for any party, only God knows. But DEHAP is the only one that says it will try."
