Abdullah Levent Tüzel

Abdullah Levent Tüzel (2009)

Abdullah Levent Tüzel (born July 12, 1961 in Bulancak , Giresun province ) is a Turkish politician, member of parliament and founder of Emek Partisi (EMEP) in 1996. Until autumn 2015 he was a member of the Halkların Demokratie Partisi (HDP) for Istanbul in the Turkish parliament .

Tüzel studied law at the University of Istanbul and has worked as a freelance lawyer since 1985. He later became a member of the Human Rights Association in Istanbul and chairman of the Çağdaş Hukukçular Derneği Lawyers Association of Istanbul.

In 1996, Tüzel and others founded the EMEP Labor Party. Tüzel was party chairman until 2007, when he resigned from EMEP to run as an independent candidate for the 2007 parliamentary elections. Because of the 10 percent threshold clause , several mainly Kurdish politicians ran as non-party candidates and were supported by the Alliance Thousand Hopes (Turkish: Bin Umut). Tüzel ran for the province of Izmir, but could not win enough votes. He then returned to EMEP.

For the following election in 2011 , Tüzel ran again as an independent and this time won a mandate in the third constituency of Istanbul. After the election, several independents, such as Tüzel, joined the Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi , which thereby achieved parliamentary strength.

In 2013 Tüzel joined the HDP. The HDP was a new party founded by the pro-Kurdish BDP and other mostly small left-wing parties to appeal to an even larger electorate. EMEP, which was also a founding member of the HDP, later resigned from the HDP due to differences with the Kurdish faction. Tüzel did not follow the example of his former party and remained a member of the HDP. Tüzel was confirmed as a Member of Parliament for Istanbul in June 2015 .

No government could be formed after the election, so new elections were scheduled for November 2015 . Tüzel received the offer for a ministerial post in the transitional government, but turned it down. Tüzel was not re-elected for the by-election by the HDP.

Web links

• Data on Abdullah Levent Tüzel on the website of the Turkish Parliament