Independence Path (Bağımsızlık Yolu – BY) has announced the parliamentary candidates who will run in the general election to be held on December 6. The candidates were selected by the party's Party Assembly and appear on five separate lists totalling 48 names. Their order within each electoral district was determined by a draw held under a zipper system that gives priority to women.
In districts with women candidates, the party arranged its lists so that women and men alternate, starting with a woman in first place. As a result, all five lists are headed by women.
According to a statement from the BY press office, the party is preparing for the election with a political vision built on the emancipation of labour and women, the protection of nature against the capitalist order, public ownership, and a federal solution to the Cyprus problem. The statement said the party is carrying the rights struggles it has waged for years and its pro-labour policies into the campaign, arguing that economic and social life should be organised around the needs of working people and the common good rather than the interests of capital.
Campaigning for secure employment in the private sector under the slogan "Ban non-union employment", the party advocates raising the minimum wage to the level of the lowest public-sector salary. BY also calls for a wealth tax to reduce economic inequality and for AKSA to be nationalised so that energy is managed in the public interest.
The party's 16-candidate list reads: Cansu N. Nazlı, Münür Rahvancıoğlu, Nazen Şansal, Umut Ersoy, Hatice Gök, Salim Piyale, Fatma Sezikli, Tağmaç Özberk, Hasan Ç. Tezbaşar, Tahsin Oygar, Mustafa Batak, Ahmet Karaman, Evren Demirbilek, Evren Cem, Salih Hayaloğlu and Behiç Anibal.
One 12-candidate list is made up of Sevgül Uzkan, Ali Şahin, Fatoş Karabiber, Mustafa Keleşzade, Meryem Nazlı, İbrahim Baykal, Sabahat Aydıç, Aytaç Bulut, Fatma Çiğdem Faiz, Yusuf Bülent Yüksel, Erol Ertugan and Gazi Gök. The other features Rüyam Öztuna, Haydar Dolmacı, Zimzer Sertel, Gülertan Aşık, Ayla Aydoğan Gökay, Hulusi İpek, Sevgi Keleş, İsfendiyar Pilli, Yalçın Ertugan, Demre Coşkun, Halide Erkıvanç and Mustafa Erk.
The five-candidate list comprises Havva Karabeyaz, Hakan Tanıttıran, Melisa Koloz, Mustafa Bülent Çakır and Hasan Günay, while the three-candidate list includes Neriman Özdemir, Yahya Çukurovalı and Nil Çukurovalı Özkızan.
