Erkan Baş stands for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in Istanbul 1st District.

Erkan Baş was born in Berlin, the son of a family of workers who migrated from Yugoslavia to Turkey, from Turkey to Germany. He returned to Turkey with his family and in Turkey he attended the primary school.

While in high school he met the revolutionary struggle and joined the Socialist Rulership Party (SiP). Within this party and later in the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) Erkan Baş undertook various responsibilities.

In 2009, the General Assembly elected him chairman of the TKP, and after the Gezi Park protest he left the party to enter in the newly founded People’s Communist Party of Turkey.

Among the founders of the one month old the Workers Party of Turkey (TIP), Erkan Baş explained to Mesopotamia Agency how he was selected as a candidate for the HDP.

The first reason for being a candidate for the HDP, said Baş, is because of the economic and political crisis Turkey is facing. “We must get rid of the AKP regime - he said - and the HDP is the party which can achieve that and give people the answers they want”.

The second reason Erkan Baş gave for his candidacy is more historical. “The Kurdish political movement - he said - has proved that the best way to avoid and counter the Turkification is a common struggle of all peoples. This is crucial for the future of Turkey. If we are to free this country it will be with Turkish and Kurdish workers together”.

The third reason Erkan Baş gave is “the need to stand by the HDP. We need to overcome the threshold and shape an inclusive alliance with all socialist, left and progressive groups”.

Erkan Baş ended by saying that “in 16 years of AKP regime we have seen almost 50% of the people of this country suffered poverty, repression, war. Yet they resisted. When the government didn’t deliver, the people actually took to the streets. They did it in Gezi Park and the same spirit we saw in Kobanê. Today the HDP represents an opportunity of change. We have to grasp this opportunity”.