Mehmet Ufuk Uras (; born 4 January 1959, in

Üsküdar Üsküdar () is a municipality and district of Istanbul Province, Turkey. Its area is 35 km2, and its population is 524,452 (2022). It is a large and densely populated district on the Anatolian (Asian) shore of the Bosphorus. It is border ...

Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

) is a Turkish politician and

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

Biography and political career

Uras graduated from the Faculty of Economics of

Istanbul University Istanbul University, also known as University of Istanbul (), is a Public university, public research university located in Istanbul, Turkey. Founded by Mehmed II on May 30, 1453, a day after Fall of Constantinople, the conquest of Constantinop ...

and began working as an academician at the same institution. A former leader of the now-defunct University Lecturers' Union (''Öğretim Elemanları Sendikası''), he was elected the chairman of Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) in 1996. Uras resigned from the leadership after the 2002 general election. He became the party chairman again in 2007.

2007 elections and after

Uras ran a successful campaign as an independent and a "common candidate of the Left" within the Thousand Hopes alliance, backed by Kurdish-based Democratic Society Party and several left-wing, environmentalist and pro-peace groups in the 2007 general election, polling 81,486 votes, which is approximately 4 per cent of the vote in his constituency. After having elected as an independent to the parliament he rejoined the ÖDP. He was removed from his post as the ÖDP party leader in 2009, when his opponent Hayri Kozanoğlu was elected. He resigned from the Freedom and Solidarity Party on 19 June 2009. After the Democratic Society Party was dissolved in December 2009 and two of its MPs were banned from politics for five years, he joined forces with the remaining Kurdish MPs in the

Peace and Democracy Party The Peace and Democracy Party (, , BDP) was a Kurdish political party in Turkey existing from 2008 to 2014. Development BDP succeeded the Democratic Society Party (DTP) in 2008, following the closure of the latter party for its alleged conne ...

group, giving them the twenty seats necessary to retain their position as a parliamentary party.

Post-parliamentarian political life

Uras did not run in the 2011 general election. On 25 November 2012, he became a co-founder and member of Greens and the Left Party of the Future, founded as a merger of the Greens and the Equality and Democracy Party. The Greens and Left Party backed the Kurdish-led Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) in the 2015 elections. Uras called for the HDP to move closer to

Syriza The Coalition of the Radical Left – Progressive Alliance (), best known by the syllabic abbreviation SYRIZA ( ; ; a pun on the Greek adverb , meaning "from the roots" or "radically"), is a Centre-left politics, centre-left to Left-wing politi ...

as a political party model, with a more libertarian perspective.

Personal life

Uras is married to

ballet Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of ...

dancer and choreographer Zeynep Tanbay. Uras has a son named Deniz from a former marriage.

Books

* ''ÖDP Söyleşileri'', 1999, Istanbul: Alan. * ''Başka Bir Siyaset Mümkün'', 2003, Istanbul: İthaki. * ''İdeolojilerin Sonu mu?'', 2004, Istanbul: Çiviyazıları. * ''Sezgiciliğin Sonu mu?'', 2005, Istanbul: Devin. * ''Siyaset Yazıları'', 2005, Istanbul: Alan. * ''Alternatif Siyaset Arayışları'', 2005, Istanbul: İthaki. * "Kurtuluş Savaşı'nda Sol", 2007, İstanbul: Altın Kitaplar. * "Sokaktan Parlamentoya Özgürlükçü Siyaset İçin Notlar", 2008, İstanbul: Su Yayınları. * "Söz Meclisten Dışarı", 2010, Ankara: Penta Yayınları. * "Meclis Notları", 2013, İstanbul: Pencere Yayınları. *"Velhasıl",2018, İstanbul, Doğan Kitap.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Uras, Ufuk 1959 births Living people People from Üsküdar Istanbul University alumni Academic staff of Istanbul University Turkish economists Turkish non-fiction writers Kadıköy Anadolu Lisesi alumni Democratic Regions Party politicians Deputies of Istanbul Leaders of political parties in Turkey Members of the 23rd Parliament of Turkey