At the third party congress of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Ankara, Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli were elected as party chairpersons with 823 votes. Out of 1109 delegates, 837 used their voting rights.

Who are Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli?

Sezai Temelli was born in Istanbul in 1963 and holds a doctorate from Istanbul's Faculty of Economics. As part of the state of emergency in Turkey he was dismissed from his position as a lecturer with a statutory decree. In the elections of June 7, he was elected as an HDP deputy to the Turkish National Assembly but lost his seat again in the renewed elections on November 1.

Pervin Buldan was born in Colemêrg (Hakkari) in 1967. Her husband Savaş Buldan was the victim of an extrajudicial execution in 1994. Pervin Buldan then engaged in the fight of relatives of the "disappeared" for years. In 2007 she was first elected as an independent candidate in the Turkish parliament and then joined the DTP (Democratic Society Party). In the elections of November 1, she was elected as an HDP deputy. The Kurdish politician, who was also a member of the HDP delegation for the peace talks with Abdullah Öcalan, is undergoing several investigations.