ANKARA, Apr 18, 2011 (AFP) - Turkey's pro-Kurdish political party threatened to withdraw from June elections after the election board on Monday vetoed the party's seven candidates, media reports said.
"This is a fascist implementation. We cannot take part in an anti-democratic, unfair election," Selahattin Demirtas, head of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), told to news channel NTV.
Demirtas said they would discuss all alternatives including their withdrawal of all candidates from elections, Anatolia news agency reported.
Demirtas slammed the veto decision calling it "a state plot" and urged the parliament to postpone the elections, NTV said.
The BDP decided to run with independent candidates in the general elections on June 12, to overcome the 10 percent threshold. The vetoed candidates include veteran Kurdish politicians Leyla Zana and Hatip Dicle as well as two current BDP members of parliament.
The High Election Board (YSK) cancelled the candidacy of 12 independent bidders, saying they had former convictions preventing them from running for parliament.
In 1991, Kurdish deputies Dicle and Zana took their oath in the parliament in Kurdish causing an uproar. In 1994 police detained them from the parliament building and they were convicted of being members of a terror organization.
The BDP declared its support for 61 independent candidates and was expecting to have 35 of them in the parliament.
The mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, the BDP's stronghold, has been the scene of a bloody conflict since 1984, when the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) took up arms for self-rule, claiming some 45,000 lives.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, announced a unilateral truce in August and then extended it until the general elections to push for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
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Copyright AFP 2011.
