gathered for a press conference on Wednesday in İstanbul. (Photo: Today’s Zaman)
Three more Armenian candidates were presented for nomination for the upcoming general election during a press conference held on Wednesday at the Armenian Culture and Solidarity Association Center in İstanbul.
Filor Uluk, Murad Mıhçı and Diren Cevahir Şen are running on the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) ticket, the party with the highest number of minority candidates. Uluk, Mıhçı and Şen will be running as representatives for the Nor Zartonk Initiative — a civil society group representing Turkey’s Armenian community set up to fight hate crimes and discrimination.
The conference began with an introduction in Armenian by Nor Zartonk spokesperson Sayat Tekir. Then, switching to Turkish, Tekir explained: “We, as the Armenian community, have gone without representation for 55 years. Therefore, it is with great excitement that I present to you three Armenian preliminary candidates for the upcoming June election.” Tekir later told Today’s Zaman that there are a total of eight Armenian preliminary candidates for the upcoming election.
“[In the] democratic portions of Turkish society, through outlets such as the HDP, public forums, the Gezi Park resistance and several other fields, they [Armenians] are showing themselves. And in one way or another [they] are repeating their calls for equality, freedom, peace and justice,” stated Tekir.
“We are at a historical opportunity because our candidates are representatives for the Peoples’ Democratic Party and they are running against a critically anti-democratic 10 percent threshold, which somehow continues to exist. Every political party, prior to being elected, has promised that it will lift such a threshold, but it continues. This is the first time that we might be able to surpass this 10 percent threshold, and the public is showing us this [with their support],” claimed Tekir.
Tekir was referring to the HDP’s choice not to present independent candidates for Parliament, a risky move due to the 10 percent threshold. If the HDP is not able to surpass the parliamentary threshold, then all HDP votes will be transferred to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), and the HDP will be left unrepresented in Parliament.
Minority women representation
Uluk was born in 1960 in Samatya, a predominantly Armenian neighborhood of İstanbul. Throughout the 1990s, she was an active member of parties such as the People’s Labor Party (HEP), the Social Democratic People’s Party (SHP) and the Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP).
“We are a group living in a society where patriarchy is the model presented to us. As Armenians, beyond being oppressed, we are the women whose voices go unheard, of a people that closed ourselves off under suppression. We are first represented by our fathers, then by our husbands after we are married, for the most part,” explained Uluk.
“I believe that the time has come for us to take advantage of the historic opportunity presented to us,” she added.
