The People’s Democracy Party (HDP) has co-chairs for all representative levels. A female and male official share the responsibility. The party is chaired by Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag. The HDP has become the fastest-growing political movement in Turkey since the August 2014 election. Following the momentum of the last election, Yuksekdag explained, the HDP is now ready to participate in the next general election as a political party, believing it will be able to acquire at least 10% of the national vote, the threshold required to enter parliament. Previously, members of the HDP have entered the parliament as independent candidates.
Yuksekdag is a slender woman with a calm smile even under high levels of stress. She has been active in politics since she was 20. She did not fall into politics by coincidence or family connections, but rather chose politics as a career.
A breath of fresh air, Yuksekdag is polite yet quite stern and precise in her choice of words. She overcomes simple slogans in her speeches without being a bore. She is known not to be conformist. Yuksekdag is the leader of a party that seeks to represent diverse groups, yet is most prominently known as the party of Kurds. Yuksekdag is not Kurdish, although people in Turkey simply assume she is Kurdish or Alevi. Yuksekdag told Al-Monitor that she comes from a Sunni Turkish farming family, proudly carrying the banner for all oppressed people in the Turkish political scene. She was arrested in 2006 and 2009 for her political views. Prior to the establishment of the HDP, she was the co-chair of the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP).
The text of the interview follows:
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