November 22, 2006 - 16:46 AMT
12 Ethnic Turks Run for Dutch Parliament
Twelve candidates of Turkish origin from seven different parties will run in the upcoming elections in the Netherlands, where three Turkish candidates were expelled from their parties due to their refusal to recognize the Armenian Genocide. Approximately 12 million Dutch will vote for 150 members of the chamber of deputies on Wednesday. None of the 26 parties is expected to win the majority of the votes. The struggle is anticipated to be between the rightist Christian Democrats (CDA) and the main opposition Labor Party (PvdA). Only three of the 12 Turks can directly be elected and the possibility of election for the other candidates is up to the number of the votes. The previous expulsion of Turkish candidates leads to presumptions that most of the Turkish origin people living in the EU member country will cast their votes for Fatma Koser who is running from D'66. She might even become a minister if the predicted happens. More than 250,000 of the Turkish citizens in the country have double citizenship and approximately two thirds can vote. There are still several Turkish MPs in the Dutch parliament, reports Cihan News Agency.