ENG - Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi - DTP) is a Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. The party considers itself as social-democratic, and has observer status within the Socialist International. It is considered to be the successor of the Democratic People's Party (DEHAP).
The party was founded in 2005, as the merger of the DEHAP and the Democratic Society Movement (DTH). DTH was set up by the veteran Kurdish politicians, former deputies Leyla Zana, Orhan Doğan, Hatip Dicle and Selim Sadak upon their release from prison in 2004. The current leader of the DTP is Ahmet Türk.
The party has been alleged to have relations with the PKK, a Kurdish militant secessionist group.
 
The Democratic Society Party claimed that the 10% threshold of the national vote required in order to be represented in the Grand Assembly was aimed at disqualifying it from the parliament. - Have you voted in the poll Demokratik Toplum Partisi ? - However, many other parties failed to cross this threshold in the last election. The Democratic Society Party decided to have its candidates run as Independents. On 13 May DTP announced that if they wanted to, they could lock up the elections by putting in five to ten thousand independent candidates. The next day in a statement, the High Election Committee (Yüksek Seçim Kurulu (YSK)) responded to DTP's threat by stating that there was no issue and that they would simply use "larger envelopes".
 
Supreme Court prosecutors asked the Constitutional Court to ban the Democratic Society Party. They allege that DTP is linked to the PKK. Chief Prosecutor Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya said in an indictment "that speeches and actions by party leaders have proved that the party has become a focal point of activities against the sovereignty of the state and indivisible unity of the country and the nation." He said prosecutors hoped the legal case would shut down the party, which he described as "based on blood and orders from the terrorist organization of the PKK". Yalcinkaya said the party should be prevented from participating in elections during the expected trial period.

 

Leader: Ahmet Türk

Founded: 2005, successor to DEHAP

Political Ideology: Social Democracy, Kurdish Ethnic nationalism, Sectarianism

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Society_Party

20th November