SERPİL SAVUMLU

News Center- The presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Turkiye on May 14, 2023. While the elections are approaching, the political parties speed up their election campaigns. The Party of Greens and the Left Future, abbreviated as Green Left Party, is a member of the Labour and Freedom Alliance. The party opens election offices almost every day to come together with electors. Dersim is one of the cities where the election results arouse curiosity. In the city, 67,201 people will cast their votes to send one candidate to the parliament in order to represent them.

 

Women’s political participation is important for the people of Dersim. Aysel Doğan participated in the 1991 parliamentary elections as an independent candidate from Dersim and got the highest share of the votes. However, she was not mandated because of the Election Law. In 2009 local elections, Edibe Şahin was elected as the mayor of Dersim from the Democratic Society Party and she served as the mayor of Dersim for four years. She participated in 2015 general elections as a candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and won the elections. She is the first woman parliamentarian from Dersim.

 

‘I am one of you’

Ayten Kordu is a parliamentary candidate of the Green Left Party in Dersim for the parliamentary elections to be held in Turkiye on May 14, 2023. She was born in Erzincan in 1971, she studied sociology at university. She has been involved in women’s movement and politics for years. She began to live in Dersim in 2015 and she spent two and half years in prison for her political activities. “I am Alevi, I am one of you,” she said that being a candidate from Dersim is very important for her and that she will run in the elections in Dersim to represent women in the parliament.

 “Dersim is a city having a deep culture with its historical background and belief. It is a city, where people have been resisting the genocidal, denial and assimilation policies for years. These assimilation and denial policies are still carried out in this city. The Kurdish Women’s Movement has a long history in the city,” Ayten Kordu said that she would resist these policies in the parliament after being elected. “It is very important to represent both women and the history of women's resistance in Dersim. The women of Dersim always resist. Many women such as Zarife, Bese, Sakine and Aysel made great efforts to increase women’s political participation in the city.”

 ‘The one-man regime is a misogynistic regime’

 Speaking about the current one-man regime in Turkiye, Ayten Kordu said, “The one-man regime is a misogynistic regime. Actually, it hates other religions and differences. Therefore, a special policy is carried out here, against Alevis. The people of Dersim suffer from unemployment and are concerned about the future. For these reasons, they go to other cities and countries. The aim of the policies carried out in the city is to depopulate the city and change the democratic structure of the city.”

 “The people of Dersim trust women”

Underlining that the people of Dersim are aware of the policies against them, Ayten Kordu said, “I am a woman running for the elections against the one-man regime. The people of Dersim trust women. When we visit the people as part of our election campaign, all people, including shopkeepers, support us. The Green Left Party and the Labour and Freedom Alliance aims equality, freedom, fraternity, peace and democracy for all people in the country. We do not care about getting many votes; we want to end the one-man regime for democracy. There is a building process for democracy. As the alliance, we call this building process the third way. We aim to build the Democratic Nation perspective and the people of Dersim will play an active role in the building of this perspective.”

 Calling on the women of Dersim, Ayten Kordu said, “We need an equal life in which we can freely express our identities, languages and beliefs. We need pluralism and differences. In order to make our labor and problems much more visible, we should unite and take responsibility all together.”