66 candidates of Turkish origin stand for election in Germany

Political analysts expect around 10 candidates of Turkish origin to gain seats at Germany’s federal parliament on Sunday. Around 100 candidates with migrant background, 66 of them of Turkish origin, are standing for election on Sunday and around 10 of them have a solid chance of securing a seat in the Bundestag, or German federal parliament. Germany has about 15 million inhabitants with migrant background. Around five million of them are eligible to vote, making up 10 percent of the electorate. Turks are the largest immigrant group with a population close to 3 million, around 1 million of whom have acquired German citizenship. The number of German-Turkish voters is estimated to be around 700,000. While Turkish community constitutes 3.75 percent of the overall population, the number of Turkish-German deputies at the federal parliament is significantly low. Currently less than 1 percent of the deputies have been of Turkish descent. -The Greens, more open to immigrants On Sunday’s election, the Green Party has more candidates with a migrant background than any other political party. The opposition party, whose co-leader Cem Ozdemir is also of Turkish origin, has put forward 24 candidates of migrant background. Greens are popular especially among the young generation of the Turkish community. Green candidates Cem Ozdemir, Ozcan Mutlu and Ekin Deligoz are likely to get seats at the Parliament. The Left party (Die Linke) has put forward 22 candidates of migrant background followed by Social Democratic Party (SPD) which has 20 candidates of migrant background. -Turks traditionally support the SPD Member of the Turkish community traditionally voted for the Social Democrats, and according to a study by "Data 4 U", 64 percent of the Turkish-German voters said they were willing to support SPD on Sunday’s election.  Some other surveys put that number around 50 percent. Among the ten SPD candidates of Turkish origin, Aydan Ozoguz, who is also the deputy chairwoman of the SPD, has a solid chance of securing a seat in the Bundestag. Another candidate Macit Karaahmetoglu seems likely to enter the Bundestag for the first time. 26-year-old SPD candidate Mahmut Ozdemir, one of the youngest candidates running for the federal parliament, is also hopeful.   For the first time in their history, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) also put forward a Turkish-Muslim candidate, Cemile Giousouf, to run for the federal election. If elected, she will be the first Turkish-Muslim deputy in CDU’s parliamentary group. Liberal Free Democrat Party’s (FDP) deputy Serkan Toren’s hope for entering the Parliament for a second time largely depends on his party’s success to pass the 5 percent threshold. FDP has around ten candidates with migrant backgrounds. Germany’s first political party founded overwhelmingly by the immigrants and Turks is running for the general elections for the first time. The BIG party (Alliance for Innovation and Justice) has also put forward 23 candidates of Turkish origin. Political analysts expect around ten of candidates of Turkish origin to enter Germany’s federal parliament Sunday. In the last election of 2009, only five deputies of Turkish origin gained seats at the federal parliament or Bundestag, which has 622 seats.