ANKARA, Feb. 11 (Xinhua) -- Turkey's second largest opposition Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) elected two new co-chairs on Sunday, the Hurriyet Daily News reported.
On the party congress held in Ankara, former MP Sezai Temelli, 54, was voted by party delegates to replace jailed co-chair Selahattin Demirtas.
Pervin Buldan, 50, a serving MP and deputy parliament speaker, was elected to replace Serpil Kemalbay, who herself took over from another incarcerated former leader, Figen Yuksekdag.
The party said it always has a woman and man in leadership positions in the interests of equality.
Demirtas and Yuksekdag were both detained in November 2016 as part of a crackdown on the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) amid the state of emergency that followed the failed coup attempt on July 15, 2016.
On Friday, Turkish authorities issued detention warrants against Kemalbay, accusing her of "attempting to incite street protests and clashes in the disguise of opposing the Turkish military operation in Syria," according to Anadolu Agency.
The HDP opposes Turkey's current military operation against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in northern Syria, and some 500 HDP members have been detained in the last 10 days largely because of their opposition.
