Tuncer Bakırhan and Tülay Hatimoğulları re-elected as DEM Party co-chairs

Tuncer Bakırhan and Tülay Hatimoğulları will continue leading the DEM Party after winning every one of the 535 valid votes cast at its fifth regular grand congress.

Delegates meeting at Istanbul’s Nazım Hikmet Cultural Center also elected full and alternate members of the Party Assembly, the Central Disciplinary Board and the Conciliation Board. Thirty-five people will not return to the Party Assembly, reducing its membership from 82 to 80.

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We have a single agenda, and that is a democratic Turkey. We have a single agenda, and that is peace and a democratic society.

The changes are being viewed within the party as the beginning of a broader transformation expected at next year’s congress. Party circles have also been discussing a possible name change to the Democratic Republic Party.

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In a few months, with another congress, we will actually build a new movement as the Democratic Republic Movement. As a party, we are entering a new period of construction.

Pervin Buldan, a deputy speaker of Turkey’s Grand National Assembly and a member of the DEM Party’s İmralı delegation, said the party had entered a new period. She said another congress would take place in a few months to build a new movement as the Democratic Republic Movement.

Bakırhan said the party aimed to govern Turkey and fix the economy, law, foreign policy, education and health care. “We have a single agenda, and that is a democratic Turkey,” he said. Hatimoğulları urged supporters not to leave one another alone and said the silencing of weapons created major opportunities to expand the struggle for democracy.

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The silencing of weapons creates tremendous opportunities to expand the struggle for democracy.