Labour Party (Turkey)

The Labour Party (in Turkish: Emek Partisi, EMEP) is a communist party in Turkey. Its chairman is Ercüment Akdeniz.[3] The party was founded as Emek Partisi (Labour Party, EP) in 1996. Due to its ban by the Constitutional Court, it was refounded with the name Emeğin Partisi (Party of Labour, EMEP), the same year. In 2005, the name "Emek Partisi" was reinstalled after the European Court of Human Rights held the ban was a violation of Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.[4]

Not to be confused with Labour Party of Turkey.
"EMEP" redirects here. For the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme, see Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution.
Labour Party
Emek Partisi
ChairmanErcüment Akdeniz
Founded25 November 1996
HeadquartersFevzi Çakmak 1 Sokak No: 15/5, Ankara, Turkey
Membership (2023)Decrease 5,058[1]
IdeologyCommunism
Marxism–Leninism
Hoxhaism
Anti-revisionism
Political positionFar-left
National affiliationHDK
Labour and Freedom Alliance (Since 2022)
International affiliationICMLPO
IMCWP[2]
ColoursRed
Website
www.emep.org
EMEP poster, 2021

Its ideological stance is in accord with the line of ICMLPO. In its programme, EMEP identifies its goal as creating a "Independent and Democratic Turkey".

The party publishes the daily Evrensel (lit. 'Universal').

The party is one of the participants in the People's Democratic Congress, a political initiative instrumental in founding the Peoples' Democratic Party in 2012.[5] It is one of the few political parties in Turkey that recognize the Armenian deportations of 1915 as genocide.[6][7]

Electoral results

The party participated in 1999 General Elections, getting 51,756 votes, i.e. 0.17% of the total vote. In 2007 EMEP became a constituent party in the Thousand Hopes Alliance formed around DEHAP. The aim of the alliance was to present its candidates to the Turkish Parliament as independents in order to circumvent the 10% threshold[8] which has been introduced in the Turkish Constitution in 1982.[9] At the 2007 General Elections the party gathered 26,574 votes i.e. 0.08%.

Split in the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP)
Labour Party founder Abdullah Levent Tüzel joined the HDP parliamentary caucus despite party's split with the HDP

The Labour Party (EMEP) had been a member of the Peoples' Democratic Congress and had participated in the establishment of the HDP in 2012. However, the EMEP released a statement on 17 June 2014, announcing a split with the HDP.[10] The split was attributed to the restructuring of the Kurdish nationalist Peace and Democracy Party into a local-only party under the new name Democratic Regions Party (DBP), while the BDP's parliamentary caucus would be integrated into the HDP. This would, in turn, require the HDP's constitution to be altered in order to ensure greater compliance and conformity with the ideology of the BDP. This caused the EMEP to formally announce their secession from the HDP, but stated that they would continue their participation with the HDK. Despite the split, the Labour Party endorsed the HDP presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş for the 2014 presidential election and also announced that they would not be running in the June 2015 general election.

References
  1. "Emek Partisi" (in Turkish). Court of Cassation. Retrieved 11 March 2023.
  2. IMCWP. "Participants List". IMCWP. Retrieved 16 February 2019.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  3. Gazetesi, Evrensel. "EMEP Chair Ercüment Akdeniz: We are working for an alliance that prioritises the struggle". Evrensel.net. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
  4. ECHR, 31 August 2005, AFFAIRE EMEK PARTİSİ ET ŞENOL c. TURQUIE (Requête no 39434/98)
  5. HDK Bileşeni Kurumlar
  6. Gazetesi, Evrensel. "EMEP: Ermeni Soykırımı'nı lanetliyoruz". Evrensel.net (in Turkish). Retrieved 2022-01-06.
  7. Mayda, Mustafa (23 April 2017). "Soykırımın yıldönümünde: Ermeni halkının acısı bizim de acımızdır | Emek Partisi (EMEP)" (in Turkish). Retrieved 2022-01-06.
  8. Casier, Marlies; Jongerden, Joost (2010-09-13). Nationalisms and Politics in Turkey: Political Islam, Kemalism and the Kurdish Issue. Routledge. pp. 134–135. ISBN 9781136938672.
  9. "Crossing the threshold – the Turkish election". www.electoral-reform.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  10. "Yeni HDP'ye Dair Açıklama | Emek Partisi (EMEP)". 17 June 2014.
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