Election System in Greece is specially designed to prevent Turkish candidates to win a chair in the Parliement. Election results prove that intention clear enough...
Election System in Greece is specially designed to prevent Turkish candidates to win a chair in the Parliement. Election results prove that intention clear enough...
Halit Habipoğlu, chairman of Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF), evaluated the local election results that took place in Greece on 15 October, Sunday and he made a press release.
In his press release, he underlined that only in areas where Greece could not interfere, Turkish Minority candidates were succesful. He critized Greek election system and congrulated the Turkish Minority members for their conscious voting and their success in spite of such an unfair election system.
Movement in Xanthi to be followed...
Halit Habipoğlu qualified the movement in Xanthi as a great success while two independent Turkish candidates were elected for the Xanthi City Council for the first time. He congrulated Turkish Minority members for their conscious voting and emphasized that that political solidarity movement in Xanthi should be an example and followed.
City Councils of Xanthi Mustafçova and Gökçeler; Komotini Sirkeli, Susurköy and Kozlukebir could not be separated more by the Greek authorities and they were left to Turkish minority and that was the underlying reason for such a success while Greek authorities could not interfere. Habipoğlu continued “Greek authorities aim to prevent Turkish minority members to elect their own governors in regions where they are densely populated. That policy is named “ Plan of Kapodistrias”. In the framework of that plan, election areas are redefined by Greek authorities and regions where Turkish minority members are densely populated are divided into smaller election regions where Turkish minority lose their population power.”
Eleven Turkish Candidates are in Rodop Province Council and four Turkish candidates from PASOK got the highest level of votes after the elected Governor of Rodop
“Eleven Turkish candidates (nine from PASOK; 2 from YDP) were elected for the Rodop Province Council and four Turkish candidates from PASOK got the highest level of votes after the elected Governor of Rodop” said Halit Habipoğlu and he underlined “ With the latest regulations, Greek authorities eliminated the election possibility of Turkish candidates. Best proof for that can be summarized as; four candidates who got the highest level of votes after the elected Greek Governor of Rodop are the Turkish candidates. When we consider the population ratio of Turkish Minority in Rodop, it would be quite easy to elect a Turkish Governor. But with the “extended governorship” regulation, Komotini, Dedeağaç, Xanthi, Drama and Kavala were united and became one election area. With that regulation specially designed aganist Turkish candidates, Turkish voters lost their population power and remained as minority without any right to elect their own governor.”
Halit Habipoğlu wanted to remind the political unrest in Greek politics due to the ethnic identity of Gülbeyaz Karahasan when she was nominated as candidate from PASOK for the “Extended Governorship of Xanthi, Kavala, Drama”. In addition to election barriers of mayors and governors, there is the 3% election barrage that is applied to independent candidates, are all specially designed not to give chance to the Turkish minority to exercise their political rights and exclude them from administrative jobs, underlined Halit Habipoğlu.
Meanwhile, Halit Habipoğlu pointed out the necessity to change that unfair election system in the framework of democracy and permit the Turkish minority to elect their own representatives.
