The BDP is the only opposition party that has not refused to support the constitutional reform package outright. It has said that it would be willing to support the reforms if they address the party’s concerns on issues including the removal of the ban on campaigning in Kurdish, fair distribution of Treasury aid to political parties and lowering the 10 percent election threshold for Parliament.
Speaking to Today’s Zaman, Demirtaş said that the amendment to the Election Law would allow campaign speeches and other political speech in languages other than Turkish but they want more.
“If it only allows oral campaigning, it is a serious problem. We want the abolishment of all the obstacles to campaigning in Kurdish, whether spoken, written, on TV and so on. Anyway, despite the legal ban, we are in practice making political speeches in Kurdish already, and prosecutors sometimes do not press charges for this. We expect [the ruling Justice and Development Party] to develop a better understanding [of the party’s constituency’s needs] than the prosecutors,” he said.
