AKP fomenting chaos to secure single-party government: CHP leader

ANKARA

CİHAN photo

Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has accused the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of causing a recent rise in terrorist attacks with the aim of receiving enough votes to form a single-party government in the Nov. 1 polls.

Although Kılıçdaroğlu did not name the party, which has ruled the country in a single-party government for over 12 years, he implied that the AKP had “dragged the country into chaos.” 

“We have to have public peace. They have started over [fomenting chaos] since June 8 because they could not be in the government alone. Then, why the terrorism? Turkey had to be dragged into the chaos for them to be a [single party] government alone,” said Kılıçdaroğlu in an interview with the private news channel NTV on Aug. 31. 

The CHP leader also cited Health Minister Mehmet Müezzinoğlu’s remarks on presidential system.

“Turkey had to be drowning in blood and tears. Their minister is saying this. He says ‘if you had elected [Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] as president [in a presidential system], all this would not have taken place.’ They say all of this would not take place if they could be a single-party government again,” said Kılıçdaroğlu.

On Aug. 24, Müezzinoğlu argued the heart of the terrorism problem was the lack of a centralist system, and blamed dark forces for inhibiting a change in Turkey’s form of government. 

“Chaos exists because Turkey is not governed by a presidential system. Do not think of today, do not think of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Focusing on individuals to explain a system is a means to deceive people,” he said. 

Müezzinoğlu’s comments were a reiteration of his previous statements at the AKP’s Osmangazi district advisory council meeting in the northwestern province of Bursa. 

During a speech on Aug. 10, the minister alleged that if Erdoğan had been elected president within a presidential system, chaos would not have ensued. 

Kılıçdaroğlu accused the AKP of having a secret and private agenda that they could not explain to the public, adding that his party did not possess such agendas. 

The CHP leader vowed to solve the Kurdish issue in parliament with first-class democracy. 

“I will solve this issue in parliament. First-class democracy has to come to this country. This problem can be solved with democracy and more freedoms. I personally gave a road map to the prime minister in the past for the problem. No other political party leaders have done this. They told us that it was not the right way to solve it. But now they are slowly coming to our road map,” said Kılıçdaroğlu.