HDP: Hope, Peace, Democracy Won

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chairs Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli made statements on the local election results last night (March 31).

Speaking in front of the HDP provincial organization building in southeastern Diyarbakır province, Buldan said, "The winners of the election are the forces of democracy and the Kurds, the loser is the People's Alliance (the alliance formed by the ruling Justice and Development Party-AKP and its ally Nationalist Movement Party-MHP)."

Sezai Temelli spoke at the party's headquarters in the capital Ankara, said, "Hope, peace, democracy have won."

Buldan: "Trustee politics have collapsed"

Addressing a crowd of thousands in Diyarbakır, Pervin Buldan said the following in brief:

"We present this achievement to our friends who are on a hunger strike, especially to Leyla Güven.

"As far as the results announced, the forces of democracy and Kurds won everywhere in Turkey. The Peoples' Democratic Party won everywhere in Turkey.

"Our people gave the government the message that the trustee politics have collapsed. Especially here (Diyarbakır), the trustees are no more."

"We gave fascism a lesson in the west"

"We didn't win only here. We also gave a lesson to the AKP and the fascism in the west of Turkey. By not nominating candidates in Ankara, Antalya, Adana, Mersin, in the metropolitan municipalities, by supporting the forces of democracy there, we gave the government a big lesson.

"The AKP government must read this lesson well.

"Our people, at the same time, gave a big lesson to those who say, 'Get the hell out of here' to us."

"We didn't lose in Şırnak"

"We didn't lose in Şırnak, we didn't lose in Dersim, we didn't lose in Ağrı. Because there were every kind of cheating, every kind of fraud in these cities.

"Today, 12 thousand people were sent to Şırnak just to cast votes. Şırnak was somehow hijacked.

"This is why we don't say, 'We lost Şırnak'. People of Şırnak won. People of Dersim won. People of Ağrı won!"

Temelli: "We made AKP-MHP lose ground"

HDP Co-Chair made the following remarks in his speech in Ankara:

"The emerging picture shows us that hope and democracy won. Everyone who has an effort in this picture should be congratulated. In a really tough period, the peoples, women, the youth of Turkey have raised hope and democracy.

"While saving Turkey from the AKP-MHP bloc and the shame of trustees, we made AKP and MHP lose ground in the west.

"We have defended the peoples of Turkey's will of living together. Our move of making the AKP-MHP government lose ground, which was an important part of our strategy, is the result of our policies to live together.

"If we took an important step all across Turkey, we did this with the Kurdish people, Turkey's laborers, women, youth. It is clear that this result will cause important changes in the politics of Turkey." (AS/VK)