ISTANBUL
The leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish HDP party has said the votes of young people are crucial to break through the country’s 10 percent electoral threshold and enter parliament for the first time.
Peoples' Democratic Party chief Selahattin Demirtas was fielding questions from students at one of the country’s most prestigious colleges, Bogazici University in Istanbul on Monday.
“If we enter parliament, we will prevent them [the ruling AK Party] from using parliament however they want. So, we need youth support,” he said.
Under the current constitution, political parties need to win 10 percent of the vote nationally to enter parliament. The HDP is taking part in the general election for the first time under its own banner.
Current HDP lawmakers ran as independents in the 2011 general election, receiving about 6.57 percent of the vote, which corresponds to about three million ballots.
Opinion polls indicate that the pro-Kurdish party is on the edge of having the necessary 10 percent to enter the Turkish parliament.
"... The thing that we need to gain is to create hope for people. I think we’ve succeeded in this. This is much more permanent thing than the election victory," Demirtas noted.
Describing the HDP as a snowplough, Demirtas said that they were opening "the choked democratic channel," adding that the party's existence was a guarantee for peace in Turkey.
On democratic pledges, the pro-Kurdish party has previously said it would write a new constitution to represent “multiple identities, cultures, beliefs, languages.”
The HDP also promised to establish a “Women’s Ministry”. Likewise, it has pledged to abolish the existing Youth and Sports Minister position. Instead, it aims to establish a “Youth Ministry” to address young people’s needs.
On the economic side, the party said it would increase the monthly minimum wage to 1,800 Turkish liras ($650), adding that it would lower minimum weekly working hours to 35. It added that the HDP would abolish subcontracting to end labor being “rented” to companies.
