Freedom and Solidarity Party

Freedom and Solidarity Party (Turkish Özgürlük ve Dayanışma Partisi (ÖDP)) is a left-wing party in Turkey. The party has had limited electoral success, although it controls a number of town halls and is influential in some unions of public employees. It is one of the few political parties in the world to explicitly espouse the political ideology of libertarian socialism.

History

Founded in 1996 as a merger of several left-wing groupings. In 1999 general election, its first major electoral outing, the party polled 0.8% of the vote, falling far behind the 10% threshold required for parliamentary representation. A deep internal crisis followed and by 2001, several of the initial groupings left. In 2002 elections, the party saw its votes further diminished to 0.3% of the national vote.

In the 2004 local elections, the ÖDP gained control of two town halls in Artvin and Yozgat provinces. In these elections, the ÖDP had joined an electoral coalition with the pro-Kurdish DEHAP and the left Social Democrat SHP (Sosyaldemokrat Halk Partisi). At the next 2009 local elections, Mithat Nehir was the sole victorious ÖDP candidate in the entire republic (17,723 votes for the whole country, i.e. 0.04 %), and became mayor of the Samandağ district., Hürriyet, Hürriyet

Ufuk Uras, who was then the president of the party was elected to the parliament from the independents' ticket, during the 2007 general election. The party's formal...
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