Ufuk Uras

Uras graduated from the Faculty of Economics of Istanbul University and began working as an academician at the same institution.

A former leader of the now-defunct University Lecturers' Union (Öğretim Elemanları Sendikası), he was elected the chairman of Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) in 1996.

[citation needed] Uras ran a successful campaign as an independent and a "common candidate of the Left" within the Thousand Hopes alliance,[1] backed by Kurdish-based Democratic Society Party and several left-wing, environmentalist and pro-peace groups in the 2007 general election, polling 81,486 votes, which is approximately 4 per cent of the vote in his constituency.

[1] He was removed from his post as the ÖDP party leader in 2009, when his opponent Hayri Kozanoğlu was elected.

Uras called for the HDP to move closer to Syriza as a political party model, with a more libertarian perspective.