ANKARA—The fourth convention of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) in Turkey convened this week with Armenian Turkish parliament member and HDP representative Garo Paylan serving as chair, among others.
Representing the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) at the convention was Khajag Mgrdichian, along with 100 international participants and thousands of guests. Convention organizers estimated a crowd of 30,000 party members and supporters and the broadest foreign delegation in HDP’s history. Mgrdichian also represented the ARF at HDP’s previous convention.
Delegates from Armenia, France, Germany, Australia, Tunisia, Palestine, Jordan, Morocco, Cyprus, Sweden, West Bank, Galicia, Lebanon, Greece, Basque, Egypt, Italy, Catalonia, Denmark, Norway, England, Scotland, Portugal, Finland, Switzerland, and Spain attended the congress, alongside more than 30 representatives of political parties and women’s organizations from the Middle East. The congress also hosted the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe United Left Group Chairman Tiny Kox, Palestinian People’s Liberation Front member Leila Khalid, Swedish Social Democratic Party Member of Parliament Kadir Kasırga, and President of the European Free Alliance Lorena Lopez de Lacalle as guest speakers. According to the HDP, thousands more were not allowed to attend due to the crackdown by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
At the close of the convention, the delegates elected the party’s co-chairs. According to HDP by-laws an equal number of men and women are elected to the party’s leadership bodies. Pervin Buldan and Mithat Sancar were elected as the party’s co-chairs along with the Party Assembly with 836 votes from the 1018 delegates that participated.
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