News Center- The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) held a Democratic Local Governments Conference in Ankara on September 26 with the motto, “It is time to break down the trustee regime and to build democratic local governments.” The HDP has announced the final declaration of the conference. “While the AKP-MHP government continues to create crises that leave no space for people to take a breath, our struggle to save democracy and defend society among these crises continues,” HDP says in the declaration, “We are democratizing Turkey and paving the way for the freedom of the Kurdish people!”

The declaration draws attention to the fact that HDP was the determining party in the general elections, which were held on March 31, 2019. “HDP won the trustee appointed municipalities again. Our victory in the elections revealed once again that the ruling party cannot get results from oppressive policies.”

“Trustees will go”

The high points in the final declaration are as follows;

“The appointment of trustees in 2016 and 2019 reveals that these appointments were a planned political and administrative step against the identity and values of the Kurdish people. But this new regime didn’t only attack the identity of Kurds but also took the control of Turkey. Trustees, the name of the usurpation of the right to vote and to be elected, are an effort to ignore the achievements of the peoples of Turkey and the democratic forces. The trustee policy is the manifestation of intolerance against the will of the democratic society and suspending all constitutional rights.

We are the representatives of a political tradition that defends its will against these attacks under all circumstances. We will keep the struggle for democracy, and we will say the last word against the trustee policy. The trustees will go; we will stay!”

“We keep defending the democratic autonomy”

The final declaration also draws attention to the co-presidential system operated by the HDP, “This system is attempted to be criminalized because it defends gender equality. We insist on Local Democracy based on Decentralization! We keep defending the democratic autonomy of Local Governments.”