political scene. In December 2020 HDP co-deputy head for local governments, Salim Kaplan said that "since 2016, 20,000 of our members have been taken into custody and more than 10,000 of our members and executives have been sent to jail." and 48 municipalities have been seized by the government. The ruling AKP accuses the HDP of having direct links with the PKK and was in March 2021, defending itself against prohibition, until the case was dropped. Overview The HDP first participated in the 2014 local elections, where it ran in most provinces in western Turkey while the DBP ran in the Kurdish south-east. The two parties combined gained 6.2% of the total votes but HDP failed to win any municipalities. The 21 MPs from the Peace and Democracy Party, the predecessor of the DBP, joined the HDP on 28 August 2014. For the June 2015 general election, the HDP took the decision to field candidates as a party despite the danger of potentially falling below the 10% threshold. Even though most of the politicians from HDP are secular left-wing Kurds, the candidate list included devout Muslims, socialists, Alevis, Armenians, Syriac Christians, Azerbaijanis, Circassians, Lazi, Romanis and LGBT activists. Of the 550 candidates, 268 were women. In 2015, Barış Sulu was the first openly gay parliamentary candidate in Turkey as a candidate of the HDP. Support for the HDP among Alevis rose from 7% to 16% between June 2015 and June 2018. Foundation People's Democratic Congress The People's Democratic Party originates from the Peoples' Democratic Congress (Halkların Demokratik Kongresi, HDK), a platform composed of various groups including left wing parties Revolutionary Socialist Workers' Party (DSIP), Labour Party (EMEP), Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP), Socialist Democracy Party (SDP), Socialist Party of Refoundation, the Greens and the Left Party of the Future, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), some far-left factions, feminist groups, LGBT groups, trade unions and ethnic initiatives representing Alevis, Armenians, and Pomaks. In the 2011 general election, the HDK fielded 61 independent candidates in order to bypass the 10% parliamentary threshold under the 'Labour, Democracy and Freedom Block'. 36 members were elected, though the election of Hatip Dicle was later annulled by the Supreme Electoral Council and this number subsequently fell to 35. Fatma Gök, one of the HDP's founding chairpersons, described the HDK as a means of providing political hope to citizens and also as a way of