SYRIZA becomes the winner of Greek elections

ABTTF President Halit Habip Oğlu: “The historic alteration happening now in our country must include our minority as well and we should construct the new Greece all together.”

The results of the early general elections held in Greece on 25 January 2015 have been announced. Following the recent unsuccessful presidential elections on 29 December 2014, an early general elec-tion was held in the country with the participation of almost 10 million voters. The main opposition party, Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) won the elections obtaining 36,36% of the votes. SYRIZA is not able to rule alone and will have to form a coalition after acquiring 149 out of 300 seats in the Greek Parliament.

Western Thrace Turkish Minority sends 3 minority deputies all belonging to SYRIZA to the Greek Parliament

Western Thrace Turkish Minority will send 3 minority deputies all belonging to SYRIZA to the Greek Parliament according to the outcomes of the elections held yesterday. SYRIZA Rhodope deputy Ayhan Karayusuf and SYRIZA Xanthi deputy Hüseyin Zeybek were re-elected to the par-liament. Mustafa Mustafa who is nominated by SYRIZA from Rhodope also entered the parliament for the first time.

Golden Dawn becomes the third party

According to the results, New Democracy (NEA) Party has become the loser of the elections of yes-terday. Having acquired 27,81% of the votes, New Democracy will have 76 deputies whereas the radical rightist Golden Dawn Party became the third biggest party. Golden Dawn who got 6,28% of the votes and 17 deputies was followed by To Potami who obtained the same number of deputies with 6,05% of the votes. The Communist Party (KKE) got 5,47% of the votes and has 15 deputies while ANEL assembled 4,75% of the votes with 13 chairs in the parliament. The weakest party be-came PASOK having 4,68% of the votes and 13 deputies.

SYRIZA Leader Aleksis Tsipras made the following statements after the election: “Greek people wrote a history today. You are the witnesses of an historic change. Your decision undoubtedly im-plies a cancellation of the package that causes austerity and destruction.”

The president of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) Halit Habip Oğlu made the following statements after the election: “A new page is being opened in our country, Greece. The people said ‘no’ to the politicians representing the old order. All Greeks put forward their strong desire for “change” in yesterday’s election. I hope this change will not be limited to only social and economic fields. In this newly-constructed Greece, we hope to have an environment where all communities living in the country are provided with equal standards as the majority and the freedom of expression is guaranteed. We demand that the rights of our minority, which have been violated up until today, are restored and a genuine equality is created between our Western Thrace Turkish Minority and the majority. We expect that our minority is considered not as a threat to the country but as part of the country’s richness as in the cases of Germany, Italy, Austria and Denmark. I wish once more that the election results be beneficent for our country and hopefully the new Greece is constructed together with our minority.”