Greece’s Turkish minority sends 4 representatives to new parliament

By Ahmet Gencturk

ATHENS (AA) - The Turkish minority in Greece, which is mostly concentrated in Western Thrace, has sent four lawmakers to the new parliament, according to the results announced by the Interior Ministry.

Huseyin Zeybek of the main opposition SYRIZA and Burhan Baran of the social-democrat PASOK were elected from Iskece (Xanthi) province, while Ozgur Ferhat of SYRIZA and Ilhan Ahmet of PASOK were elected from Rodopi province, which has a significant Turkish ethnic population.

Three lawmakers retained their seats in parliament, while Ferhat was elected to the lower house for the first time after receiving over 12,000 votes.

The majority of the country's ethnic Turkish minority, approximately 150,000 people, live in Western Thrace, which borders Bulgaria to the north, Türkiye to the east, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Greek region of Macedonia to the west.

With 100% of the votes counted on Monday, the New Democracy party won 40.79% – twice the main opposition SYRIZA’s 20.07%. Socialist PASOK came in third at 11.46%, followed by Greek Communist Party with 7.23%. Far-right, populist Greek Solution party became the 5th biggest party in the country with 4.45%.