The Thousand Hope Candidates ( Turkish: ''Bin Umut Adayları'') was an

electoral alliance An electoral alliance (also known as a bipartisan electoral agreement, electoral pact, electoral agreement, electoral coalition or electoral bloc) is an association of political parties or individuals that exists solely to stand in elections. E ...

between four left-wing political parties in

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 ...

, formed in preparation for the 2007 general election. The alliance contested the election by fielding candidates from participating parties as independents in order to bypass the 10%

election threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of votes that a candidate or political party requires before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can operate in various w ...

needed to win seats in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. The alliance's candidates won a total of 1,334,518 votes and 22 seats in the election. Lacking a realistic prospect of gaining parliamentary representation due to the 10% threshold, the pro-Kurdish

Democratic Society Party The Democratic Society Party (, DTP, Kurdish: ''Partiya Civaka Demokratîk'', PCD) was a Kurdish nationalist political party in Turkey. The party considered itself social-democratic and had observer status in the Socialist International. It was c ...

(DTP), the socialist libertarian

Freedom and Solidarity Party The Left Party (, often written as SOL Parti) is a secular, socialist political party in Turkey. The Party was founded after the Freedom and Solidarity Party () decided to change its name to the Left Party at the 8th Extraordinary Congress held ...

(ÖDP), the Labour Party (EMEP) and the

Socialist Democracy Party Socialist Democracy Party (''Sosyalist Demokrasi Partisi'', SDP) was a socialist party in Turkey. Most of its members were formerly in an opposition grouping within ÖDP, named ''Sosyalist Eylem Platformu'' (Socialist Action Platform). They def ...

(SDP) joined forces and decided to field candidates under a joint alliance, hence creating the Thousand Hope alliance. The alliance stated that its candidates included individuals who could extend the appeal of the political left to the general public, having also extended support to other left-wing candidates who were not part of the four member parties. The alliance fielded 65 candidates in 40

provinces A province is an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outside Italy. The term ''provi ...

. The Labour Party and the Freedom and Solidarity Party fielded their own candidates in the remaining 41 provinces but fell well short of the 10% electoral threshold. The alliance was also in favour of

minority rights Minority rights are the normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or gender and sexual minorities, and also the collective rights accorded to any minority group. Civil-rights movements oft ...

, having openly campaigned as 'Kurds wanting peace'. Segments of society such as the

LGBT LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The gro ...

community, which the alliance claimed had faced discrimination and oppression, played a major role in alliance's election campaign. Critics branded the alliance as

Kurdish nationalist Kurdish nationalism () is a nationalist political movement which asserts that Kurds are a nation and espouses the creation of an independent Kurdistan from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. Early Kurdish nationalism had its roots in the Ottoman ...

, pointing to the pro-Kurdish DTP, which was the biggest of the four participating parties. A similar alliance, namely the

Labour, Democracy and Freedom Bloc The Labour, Democracy and Freedom Bloc ( Turkish: ''Emek, Demokrasi ve Özgürlük Bloğu'') was an electoral alliance formed by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) with several other smaller left-wing parties and political movements in ...

, was formed in preparation for the 2011 general election four years later.

General election performance

Results

*This table only shows the votes won by the Thousand Hope candidates, who stood in 40

. In the remaining 41 provinces, the Freedom and Solidarity Party and the Labour Party fielded their own candidates. The votes that they won in these other provinces that were not part of the Thousand Hope candidate alliance are not shown. *Swing and seat change is compared to the Democratic People's Party's performance in the 2002 general election *Provinces won by Thousand Hope candidates are coloured in the map

Elected members

22 of a total of 65 candidates were elected. The combined votes won by Thousand Hope candidates were higher than any other party in the provinces of

Tunceli Tunceli (, , ) is a municipality (belde) in Tunceli District and capital of Tunceli Province, Turkey. The city has a Zaza majority. It had a population of 35,161 in 2021. Name During Ottoman times, the settlement was called ''Kalan'' or ''Ma ...

Diyarbakır Diyarbakır is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, it is ...

Muş Muş (; ; ) is a city in eastern Turkey. It is the seat of Muş Province and Muş District.İl Beled ...

Iğdır Iğdır (; or ; ; or ) is a city in the Eastern Anatolia Region of Turkey. It is the seat of Iğdır Province and Iğdır District.

Hakkari Hakkari or Hakkâri may refer to: *Hakkari (historical region), a historical region in modern-day Turkey and Iraq *Hakkâri (city), a city and the capital of Hakkâri Province, Turkey *Hakkâri Province Hakkâri Province (, ; ), is a province i ...

and

Şırnak Şırnak () is a city in Şırnak District and the capital of Şırnak Province in Turkey. The Ibrahim Khalil border crossing with Iraq is one of the main links of Turkey to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The city is mainly populated by Kurds o ...

. The results represented a significant swing to the governing

Justice and Development Party Justice and Development Party may refer to several political parties, the best-known ones being: * Justice and Development Party (Morocco) * Justice and Development Party (Turkey) Justice and Development Party may also refer to: * Justice and Dev ...

(AKP), which made heavy gains in the Kurdish south-east were the Democratic People's Party had won back in

2002 The effects of the September 11 attacks of the previous year had a significant impact on the affairs of 2002. The war on terror was a major political focus. Without settled international law, several nations engaged in anti-terror operation ...

. Only 2 of the 22 Thousand Hope Candidates elected were from non-southeastern provinces, namely

Ufuk Uras Mehmet Ufuk Uras (; born 4 January 1959, in Üsküdar, Istanbul, Turkey) is a Turkish politician and economist. Biography and political career Uras graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Istanbul University and began working as an academicia ...

and

Sebahat Tuncel Sebahat Tuncel (born 5 July 1975) is a Turkish politician of Kurdish origin, women's rights advocate, former nurse and member of the Parliament in Turkey. She was elected a member of parliament while being in prison. Early life and education ...

from İstanbul's

1st First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

and 3rd electoral district respectively. The following table shows the distribution of DTP, SDP, EMEP and ÖDP members within the 22 elected members. The full list of members elected under the Thousand Hope banner are as follows:

Votes won by participating parties elsewhere

The Labour Party and the

both fielded candidates as a party in electoral districts where the Thousand Hope Candidates did not run for election. The votes shares won by these parties are as follows.

References

External links

ÖDP official websiteSDP official website

*''The DTP, having been dissolved in 2009 and replaced by the