JINHA

ISTANBUL –The group Women's Coalition, in an analysis of the status of women in the parties that will be competing in Turkey's June election, has said that the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) is the party that is closest to women's equality.

Women's Coalition is an alliance of independent women's organizations working on a local and national level in Turkey. "If there's no equality, there's no justice," read the Women's Coalition announcement. The statement criticized Turkey's 10% electoral threshold that keeps all but the largest, most patriarchal parties out of Parliament, but said that if the pro-woman left opposition party HDP enters Parliament, it will accomplish a victory for women in Parliament.

While the HDP, with a nearly 50% female Parliamentary slate, is running female candidates in all but 3 of Turkey's 81 provinces, said the report, the current parties in Parliament are running no female candidates in many provinces. The ruling AKP's candidate lists in nearly half of Turkey's provinces lack a single female candidate. The other main parties, the Kemalist CHP and the far-right MHP, are running all male lists in even more provinces.

(gc/cm)