Turkish opposition parties boycott parliament ceremony

Jun 28, 2011, 14:58 GMT

Istanbul - Almost a third of Turkey's newly elected members of parliament were not present or refused to take an oath of office at a swearing-in ceremony Tuesday, part of a protest move by two opposition parties at the barring of eight of their colleagues from taking office.

Lawmakers from the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) - which won 135 seats out of 550 in the June 12 elections - attended the ceremony but did not take the oath of office, a symbolic move in reaction to court decisions last week not to release two of the party's members from detention in a high-profile trial.

The ruling AKP's 327 deputies were in full attendance. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan - who had earlier blamed the opposition parties for fielding candidates embroiled in court cases - recited his oath but refused any comment on the situation.

The single CHP member who recited the oath was Oktay Eksi, 79, who presided over the ceremony as the parliament's oldest member, following traditional protocol.

This was the first opening session of the Turkish parliament ever to be convened with members missing, Eksi noted in a short speech at the start of the ceremony.

'Eight parliamentarians have been deprived of the duty that has been given to them. I would like to put down for the record that this is not befitting to the history of the Turkish parliament or to our democracy,' Eksi said.

The two CHP lawmakers who were prohibited from entering parliament are detained in connection with an investigation into Ergenekon, an alleged nationalist network accused of plotting to bring down the government.

'We are not asking for any privilege for our colleagues; we are not saying they should not be tried. We are only against the seizure of our colleagues' right to take the parliamentary oath, when they have not been convicted and no obstacle was found to their being elected,' CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu said in a statement before the start of the ceremony.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) - which won 36 seats in Turkey's June 12 elections - boycotted the ceremony entirely, a move it had announced last week after the country's elections board ruled to strip deputy Hatip Dicle of his seat.

While the parliamentary ceremony took place in the capital Ankara, BDP lawmakers gathered Tuesday in the primarily Kurdish south-eastern city of Diyarbakir, where the party is headquartered.

'Our group will have weekly meetings in Diyarbakir and we will not enter parliament until possible solutions have been found,' BDP deputy Gultan Kisanak said in a statement on behalf of the party.

Dicle was barred from taking office because of a conviction for disseminating 'terrorist propaganda' for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

His seat was transferred to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) because he, like other BDP deputies, ran as an independent to get around a 10-per-cent electoral threshold.

Five additional BDP deputies were banned from taking their seats by court decisions over the weekend due to their ongoing detention pending trial in a case against the Kurdish Communities Union (KCK), which prosecutors say is the urban wing of the PKK.

The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the third opposition party, with 53 seats, fully participated in the swearing-in ceremony, despite the fact that one of its deputies was also barred from his seat in connection with an ongoing court case.