Statement by Vasilis considering Western Thrace Turks as national threat

Halit Habip Oğlu: “We are struggling only for our democratic rights and freedoms against excluding, discriminative and racist state policy which perceives Western Thrace Turks as a threat factor”

Vasilis Levendis, President of Central Union Party in Greece, as a response to a question related to election system addressed at the press conference held at Thessaloniki International Trade Fair stated “If the votes of the Muslim party were 5%, we would make the threshold 5” implying Friendship, Equality, Peace (DEB) Party, the political party of the Western Thrace Turkish com-munity.

According to the news in newspaper Gündem, as regards explanation of Levendis who indicated that every system would be fraudulent apart from the relative system, a journalist stated that the current election system is not a relative one with 3% electoral threshold and asked the question whether the Central Union votes for fraudulence in this respect. Levendis as a response to the question expressed that DEB Party entering the parliament with expression of “Muslim’s party” would be very unfavorable and said “Country’s interest is above all”.

Levendis stated that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is ready to lower the electoral threshold to 2% however he insists on 3% electoral threshold as the issue is related with Muslims. Levendis stated “Muslims have a voting power between 1.8 and 2.2. We wouldn’t allow a Muslim Party to enter the parliament. Yes, today, SİRİZA and other parties recruit Muslim candidates, but en-trance of an independent Muslim Party into the parliament would be very unfavorable. Understand this, this is not an issue of 3%. If Muslim votes were 5% we would make the threshold 5%, let me indicate this openly. Interest of the country is above everything. Let others undertake this respon-sibility and let ones saying ‘Hurray Erdoğan’ at the parliament be Muslims. The issue is a critical one. And I don’t want the 3%. Because of this threshold I could not enter the parliament for 40 years. I would be the first to ask for removal of this however when I see that the Muslims would enter the parliament what do you expect me to do?

Related with the subject, Halit Habip Oğlu, President of Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe stated “Even though explanation by Levendis is a scandal one it is such as to summarize the perspective on Western Thrace Turkish community in political field. 3% electoral threshold is anti-democratic and it has been developed with the aim to hinder representation of Western Thrace Turkish community at the parliament with its own political party. As we see in the explana-tion of Levendis this mindset still prevails. We would like to remind something regarding the issue where Levendis makes a claim about the country’s interests: As Western Thrace Turks in Greece we are the citizens of this country, we are a part of this country. We are struggling only for our democratic rights and freedoms against excluding, discriminative and racist state policy which per-ceives Western Thrace Turks as a threat factor. As the western Thrace Turks we will continue this struggle that we have been making for individual and collective minority rights in all fields.”