HDP Parliamentary Group Chair, Meral Danış Beştaş, held a press conference to deal with the main issues on this week’s agenda.

Beştaş drew attention to the AKP ‘Elections Manifesto’, presented on Sunday. "It doesn’t tell us anything new. - she said - Again the AKP main motto was, Kurds and opposition linked to death, tears and blood. New promises in reality are of more corruption and empty recipe to get out of a crisis they have caused”.

What happened during the AKP time?

Referring to the AKP time, Beştaş added: "Prohibitions are in force as never before, poverty has increased as never before, and corruption has been exported to Europe into the United States."

Beştaş, underlining the collapse of the Turkish economy, said: “In 2002, the debt of the State has tripled reaching 876.5 billion dollars in 2017. Foreign trade deficit rose to 966 million dollars, unemployment was 8.3 percent, and now is 10.3".

Beştaş remembered the repression, the kids killed by armored vehicles, the new nuclear campaign, the victims of the statutory decrees, the Cizre basements.

Beştaş, who reacted to the AKP's claim to be on the side of compassion, remembered the victims of Afrin, the victims of Roboski still waiting for justice.

Beştaş also said that the AKP has plundered the cities and turned them into piles of concrete. "There is a language you use to threaten citizens every day, the citizens are actually witnessing psychological violence every day”.

Workers’ rights seized

Beştaş added that workers’ rights have been seized by the current government. “There are 3.8 million civil servants in Turkey. Erdogan-AKP government is promising nothing but precarious work, and its blaming the ‘laziness’ of civil servants, while in reality it has been eroding their rights in time. Next week - the HDP MP added - the government is issuing a new piece of legislation, about retirement. They haven’t given a bonus in 16 years of power, and suddenly they promised the bonus. This is bribery”.

Beştaş underlined that all opinion polls gave bad results to the AKP and this despite the repression, the Law of Emergency, the media propaganda. “They panicked”, said the HDP MP.

Coming to Selahattin Demirtaş candidacy, Beştaş, said that it is also very valuable in terms of democratic politics: “This Presidential election will see a second round. People will bring Demirtaş and HDP high”.