Baş shares Demirtaş's note after his visit to prison

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Erkan Baş, President of Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) visited Selahattin Demirtaş, Ex-Chairperson of People's Democratic Party (HDP) yesterday (April 24) in Edirne F-Type Prison. 

Baş shared a social media post where he said "We will meet very soon in days of liberty," where he also posted Demirtaş's note. 

Greetings to comrades from TİP

Demirtaş says in his note, "Taking the opportunity of the visit of Erkan Baş, I wish to send my greetings and love to all my comrades, all dear candidates from TİP.

"If I was outside we would be going to the meeting by Green and Left Party in Aydın on April 29 together with him. Now my comrade Erkan will be taking my greetings to Aydın and will participate in the meeting. And I would participate in the meetings organized by TİP and we would strengthen the struggle side by side, shoulder to shoulder.

"This is what we should do and the rest will bring damage to our companionship. Our expectation from all our friends is to act accordingly and to strengthen the struggle together.

"I send my greetings, my longing and my wishes for success to everyone..."

What happened?

People's Democratic Party (HDP), the Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) and several other labor and socialist parties are competing in the May 14 elections under the Labor and Freedom Alliance. While HDP and the other political parties and groups in the alliance are running for MP under the Green Left Party (YSP) lists, TİP is fielding its candidates under seperate lists in over 40 provinces while participating in the YSP lists in some other provinces. 

This has caused some concern since it may result in a disadvantage to the alliance in the parliamentary elections due to the amendments made in the election law a year ago which entered into force a month before the May 14 elections. 

According to the previous law, seats were first distributed to alliances in proportion to their respective voting rates and then distributed within the alliances. With the amendment, the seats will be distributed directly to the parties according to the D'hondt method, hence the parties in the same alliance will compete against each other. (TY/PE)