HDP Party Assembly's final declaration about the general elections:
The HDP Party Assembly, which convened on June 10 following the general elections held on June 7, evaluated the election results and shared this final declaration with the public:
1. HDP, which competed in the election as a party in a very critical juncture, won more than 6 million votes and doubled its electoral base, despite the 10% threshold, unequal conditions, harassments, bombings, attempts of mass murder and electoral fraud. With the success of our campaign that we enthusiastically launched, hopes for a democratic, equal and free Turkey are revitalized.
2. . When HDP overcame the threshold in the June 7 elections and created a strong group in the Parliament, Erdoğan’s dreams of a “presidency system” came to an end and the forced transition to an authoritarian regime was stopped. AKP lost significant power and couldn’t get the public support required for it to establish the government by itself. Thus, a 13-year unquestionable rule ended, and gates were opened to a “New Life” to be built on the values of “Great Humanity”.
3. This election was also an indication of the bankruptcy of the ruling party’s hegemonic, irredentist, sectarian foreign policy in the Middle East. The gains made by the HDP with its electoral victory are not just gains for the peoples of Turkey, but for all the peoples in the Middle East and in the region, peoples who are struggling for peace, democracy, equality, and freedom. The Rojava revolution in Syria and the electoral victories of Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain have given hope to workers and to the oppressed.
4. Suspending the ‘Resolution Process’ and exploiting our peoples’ insistence on permanent peace, AKP faced a great defeat in provinces like Diyarbakır, Van, Ağrı, Hakkari. Thereby, speculations like ‘We, not HDP, are the political representatives of the Kurdish people’ have come to end. It is confirmed that HDP is the political representative of the Kurdish people’s 35 years old struggle for equality, peace and freedom in the parliament.
5. The “peace process” received significant support not only from cities like Diyarbakir, Van, Agri, Hakkari, but also from large cities in the West such as Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, Antalya, Kocaeli, Bursa, and the call for peace has come forward in all cities from Turkey’s east to west, south to north. In this way, the desire and will of the peoples of Turkey for living together around the values of “Great Humanity” has been emphasized once again, and the way to a parliamentarian peace process has been paved.
6. In this context, as HDP Party Assembly, we call the state and the new parliament, no matter what parties constitute it, to resume the “Peace Process.” We demand that Ocalan, who is the architect of the “Peace Process,” has been “insistent on peace” in all the critical times, and has led the way for the “Peace Process,” be freed of isolation and that conversations be initiated. We declare that HDP is ready to fulfill the political responsibility we carry with regards to this issue.
7. It is of absolute importance that 32 women were elected as representatives from HDP with a 40% rate. Women have been decisive in HDP’s great election success, and they have come forward as the driving force behind the struggle for equality and freedom. The call for “New Life” has fermented, and women turned to HDP and turned their backs to Erdogan. However, despite all these positive developments, for HDP, who has espoused the principle of “at least equal representation,” the results regarding the issue of “equal representation” constitute an important shortcoming of ours and steps will be taken to change this during the upcoming term.
8. The June 7th elections didn’t grant any parties the authority to form the government by itself, and paved the way for coalition governments. HDP will remain loyal to the words it expressed during the election campaign in attempts to form a government, and carry on its principled, accountable and constructive politics. It will provide support for attempts to form a government that are for the benefit of the peoples of Turkey and fit with our political principles, and will fulfill its responsibilities. On this occasion, we call President Erdogan to show respect for the decision of the peoples, and to “normalize the country” by retreating into Constitutional limits.
9. The parliament and the new government to be formed should quickly begin and conclude work toward a democratic, libertarian, egalitarian, social and ecological constitution that takes Turkey’s multiethnic, multicultural, multilingual, multireligious social structure as its axis, and guarantees labor rights.
10. We remember and respectfully bow down to the memory of our brothers and sisters who lost their lives before and after the election as a result of the discourse of hate and violence perpetuated by the AKP and the President over the course of the election campaign.
11. Although the election has come to an end, we are witnessing attempts at provocation and political murders ‘by shooting in the back of the neck’ in the streets of Diyarbakır that are reminiscent of the 90s. We believe that this provocation and these attempts at murder and massacre are being committed by a ‘private organization’ that cannot tolerate HDP’s success, that does not respect the will of the Kurdish people, that wants to generate ‘chaos’ by drawing the people of Diyarbakır into the streets, and that wants to cast a shadow over the legitimacy of the election results. Regardless of who is pulling the trigger or the pin, we would like to remind everyone that the political responsibility for all attempts at provocation and for the political murders being committed is on the shoulders of those who say “our people prefer chaos to stability.”
12. Having overcome all traps by taking the hit amongst the bombs exploding before the elections and maintained their fortitude despite deaths and hundreds of injured, the people of Diyarbakır also have the fortitude and experience to repel all political plots and attempts of provocation.
13. We call upon the Prime Minister and the President to make the ongoing provocations and murders stop, to cease their attempts of initiating chaos, and to normalize the country. We are also inviting all labor organizations, professional organizations, NGO’s, intellectuals, artists, writers, academics, and everyone who wants peace, to raise their voices against the attempts to initiate chaos.
14. The Party Assembly send a message of thanks, friendship and solidarity to everyone who allied or supported HDP in the election process, who actively and voluntarily joined its campaign, showed material and moral solidarity, who voted for us, ‘ourselves’ for whatever reason and carried us to the Parliament, and who, while not voting for HDP, still heard our call for new life and wanted normalization of social and political relations. We once again salute the resistances of Gezi and Kobane, which have been sources of inspiration and motivation for HDP during the election process, and we commemorate the lives lost at these resistances.
15. The path to ‘New Life’, which will be built on the values of ‘Great Humanity’, has been opened with this electoral success of HDP. Now it is the time to widen this path, increase the number of those walking on the path, to advance and clinch the unity and fellowship of the forces of democracy, peace and labor in Turkey, and to walk firmly towards the goal of peoples’ democratic governance.
HDP Party Assembly
June 11, 2015