Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Turkey on 14 May. Competing in the elections are the AKP and MHP alliance led by Erdoğan, joined by the Kurdish Islamist Hüda-Par; the Nation Alliance with its presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (CHP) and the Labour and Freedom Alliance, which includes the Green Left Party and other progressive parties.

The KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) Peoples' and Religious Affairs Committee spoke about the importance of these elections.

Highlights from the interview with ANF are as follows:

First of all, we would like to remind you that the elections that will take place on 14 May in Kurdistan and Turkey are very important. However, we do not believe that elections are the solution to everything. Such an approach would lead to big mistakes. However, the elections are important for all communities living in Turkey. For the Kurdish, Arab, Laz, Turkish and other peoples, it is about the struggle for freedom of language and culture. The Alevi, Yazidi, Assyrian, Syriac and other faith communities are fighting for equality and democracy. The elections are also very important for the struggle for the life and freedom of women who are exposed to state violence, murdered and disappeared in Turkey and Kurdistan. These elections are also very important for the youth, the labourers and all social groups.

The peoples, women and youth should participate in this process, knowing that they will play a role in a movement that will bring about the collapse of a fascist regime that is hostile to nature, cultures, fundamental rights and freedoms. The Republic of Turkey has existed for one hundred years. This period will go down in history as the century of the slaughter of peoples, especially the Kurdish people. The massacres experienced by the Alevi community in this century have also reached the level of genocide. In addition to the physical attacks, ideological and psychological attacks were also constantly on the agenda and carried out in this century.

The Turkish nation-state or the state of the Republic of Turkey has proven in its practice over the past hundred years that it has always regarded Kurds and Alevis as a security problem. Since 1923, i.e. since the foundation of the republic, the peoples have been subjected to constant pressure. However, in the last twenty years of AKP rule, the situation has escalated. There have been arrests almost daily, torture and isolation in prisons have been taken to extremes and the problems of women have drastically increased. The economy is at a dead end and people find life a grind due to economic difficulties. The war escalated most in Kurdistan, which was fought without moral rules.

Moreover, the fascist AKP/MHP government is not satisfied with any of this and has allied itself with Hüda-Par, also known as the Hezbullah organisation, which played a role in tens of thousands of unsolved murders in the 1990s with its contra activities. The aim is to intimidate the peoples. Hüda-Par is well known; Kurds in particular are no strangers to this terrorist organisation. It is the political party of Hizbi-Contra and was put into operation as the Kurdish branch of the Turkish Gladio [NATO's stay-behind organisation], especially in the early 1990s. At the same time, this organisation is also the practical executor of the secret and dark affairs in Turkey and Kurdistan, that is, the counter forces. And the entry of these forces means the entry of Gladio in the elections under the name of a political party. It is these forces that have brought Turkey to the edge of the abyss.

In this sense, Turkey has reached an important crossroads with the electoral process. The struggle of the freedom movement, the women and the youth, the labourers and the democratic circles have brought the fascist regime to the brink of collapse. With the elections, our people, indeed the peoples of Turkey, will complete the process by giving it the death blow, so to speak. In the run-up to the elections, the crucial role and importance of the Labour and Freedom Alliance becomes even clearer. The dynamic of the struggle for democracy, rights and freedom in Turkey consists of the social segments on which the Labour and Freedom Alliance is based. The more this alliance grows and becomes stronger by including all peoples, faith groups, women's organisations, youth, labourers and the unemployed living in Turkey, the more it strengthens the struggle for democracy and opens the ground for democratic politics.

For more than twenty years, the fascist government has been the common enemy of whole society in Turkey. In this sense, it is necessary to rally around the Green Left Party, which represents the peoples, the women, the youth and the religious identities, organises itself for the struggle for democracy and freedom and formulates its political programme and guidelines accordingly, and works on this basis. There must be a radical change of mentality in Turkey. The mentality of denial and annihilation, the understanding and politics of genocide must change. Change and transformation can be achieved through the development of democratic politics, democratic struggles, social struggles and resistance.