JINHA

NEWS CENTER – HDP women's candidates continued their elections campaign across Turkey over recent days, including attending Roma festivities for last night's festival of Kakava.

The party continues to open elections headquarters across Turkey. In the Yüreğir district of Adana province, hundreds attended elections office openings. Local candidates MeralDanışBeştaş, VedatÖzkan and HaticeKavran were out for the opening. Candidate MeralDanışBeştaş spoke at the opening, denouncing the recent attempts by President Erdoğan to win votes by waving a state-prepared Kurdish Qur'an in the air.

In Edirne province, which has a large Roma population,HDP candidates HülyaYer and SedatZımba attended the Roma festivities for Kakava last night. Sedat, who is himself Roma, noted that just as the Kurds were able to organize against assimilation politics, so would the Roma.

"The AKP, CHP and MHP remember the Roma from election to election, but after the elections they abandon them to their fates. The Roma people won't fall for this fake politics anymore," said Sedat. "Now, it's time to support the HDP, the hope of the oppressed."Roma celebrants, who traditionally make wishes during the festival, wished for the HDP's success.

Mardin province saw several peoples' meetings organized by the HDP and the women's organization Congress of Free Women (KJA) in the neighborhoods of the city of Derik. The activists vowed to overcome the 10% electoral threshold that poses a barrier to the HDP entering Parliament.

In the northeastern province of Erzurum, HDP candidates visited local shopkeepers and villages.HDP candidates also visited shopkeepers in the province of Osmaniye, in the south.

HDP activists also opened elections offices in the Özgürlük neighborhood of Mersin (in the Akdeniz district) and the Alipınar region of Diyarbakır's neighborhood of Bağlar.

(ekip/fk/cm)