HDP election manifesto: We will change this power!

The party promises a transition process to draw a new Democratic Constitution.

The HDP election manifesto has been disclosed to the press and public opinion on Monday.

It is the party’s vision for a new Turkey. The emphasis put on the real possibility of change provided by the HDP and on the much needed “breath of fresh air”, the party is promising to voters called to the polls on 24 June.

The HDP manifesto deals with some very intimate issues, such as the right to live in peace as equals. Something, as the party pointed out, has been prevented to the peoples of Turkey throughout the AKP era.

That era, promise the HDP, is about to end. But “freedom - has warned HDP co-chair Sezai Temelli - does not come as a gift. You have to fight for it”. The main promise the HDP makes to people is perhaps this, to stand beside them in their fight towards freedom.

Peoples’ Democratic Party co-chairs, Sezai Temelli and Pervin Buldan, made an emotional presentation of the party program. A program drawn up for women, laborers, students, farmers.

The manifesto opens with one clear promise: We will make a change!

“We will change the policy of war and the economy of Turkey carried out by the AKP government”, said the manifesto.

“The 'Presidential Alliance' - it goes on - seeks to seize the will of the people and their future through a snap election carried out under Emergency Law. We will never allow - said the manifesto - the establishment of a one-man regime in which fascism is institutionalised. Now, it is time to change this power, which has plundered nature, oppressed peoples, women, laborers”.

What kind of a regime?

The HDP manifesto goes into describing the AKP regime as “an authoritarian regime that ignores separation of powers, it is a one-man regime that ignores democracy, the search for rights and freedoms, women's freedom and equality, norms applicable to socio-political-economic life”.

On 24 June, said the manifesto, there will be a crucial choice to make: the “one-man authoritarian regime will be either institutionalised or the search and struggle for democracy that has been going on for two hundred years will be strengthened and New Life will be established”.

The HDP promises to begin a transition process on the evening of 24 June, should the people decide to vote for the democratisation of Turkey. “We have a roadmap to democratisation - say the HDP - containing solutions to the problems experienced during the one-man regime”.

Not an easy road, but, say the HDP “we will begin the process of drawing up a Democratic Constitution based on liberal secularism, pluralism, multi-linguism, multi-faith and equal citizenship”.

We’ll solve the Kurdish question

The manifesto underlined that lasting peace in Turkey depends on the solution of the Kurdish question and insisted that in fact the solution of the Kurdish question is connected with the democratisation process in Turkey. Peace, said the manifesto, is not just absence of conflict, death and suffering. It is at the same time it a real work towards coexistence.

A manifesto for women

The HDP underlined that among the most oppressed section of society by the AKP regime, are women. For this reason, 24 June will mark not only the end of the AKP regime but also the birth of a new era, where there will be no room for sexism, violence against women, chauvinism. After 16 years of oppression, women will finally come to the fore again.