Thousand Hope Candidates

The Thousand Hope Candidates (Turkish: Bin Umut Adayları) was an electoral alliance between four left-wing political parties in Turkey, formed in preparation for the 2007 general election. The alliance contested the election by fielding candidates from participating parties as independents in order to bypass the 10% election threshold needed to win seats in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. The alliance's candidates won a total of 1,334,518 votes and 22 seats in the election.[1]

Lacking a realistic prospect of gaining parliamentary representation due to the 10% threshold, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), the socialist libertarian Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP), the Labour Party (EMEP) and the Socialist Democracy Party (SDP) joined forces and decided to field candidates under a joint alliance, hence creating the Thousand Hope alliance.[2] The alliance stated that its candidates included individuals who could extend the appeal of the political left to the general public, having also extended support to other left-wing candidates who were not part of the four member parties.[3] The alliance fielded 65 candidates in 40 provinces.[4] The Labour Party and the Freedom and Solidarity Party fielded their own candidates in the remaining 41 provinces but fell well short of the 10% electoral threshold.

The alliance was also in favour of minority rights, having openly campaigned as 'Kurds wanting peace'. Segments of society such as the LGBT community, which the alliance claimed had faced discrimination and oppression, played a major role in alliance's election campaign. Critics branded the alliance as Kurdish nationalist, pointing to the pro-Kurdish DTP, which was the biggest of the four participating parties.[5]

A similar alliance, namely the Labour, Democracy and Freedom Bloc, was formed in preparation for the 2011 general election four years later.