AKP mayor apologizes for misprint of ‘we steal for the future’

ESKİŞEHİR - Doğan News Agency

Seyitgazi Mayor Hasan Kalın pictured with a school kid during the distribution of the misprinted bags. DHA Photo

A district mayor in the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir has apologized for lines reading “We steal for the future,” mistakenly printed on bags distributed to students that should have read “We work for the future.” 

Seyitgazi Mayor Hasan Kalın, elected from the AKP ticket, apologized for the misprinted lines, after photos emerged showing him distributing the paper bags to local first grade students. 

The Turkish words for work (“çalışmak”) and steal (“çalmak”) are spelled similarly, hence the printer’s slip.

Kalın apologized via his Facebook account, stating that not all of the paper bags were misprinted but those with the misspelled lines were mixed up with the correct bags. 

“I apologize for the mistake during the distribution and want to inform the public that ‘We work for the future’ will all our staff,” Kalın’s post read. 

The photos of the Kalın hit the news after Republican People’s Party (CHP) Secretary-General Gürsel Tekin showed a sample of the pictures and mocked the mayor.

Turkey’s biggest ever corruption scandal rocked the AKP government in late 2013. In two separate investigations launched on Dec. 17, and Dec. 25, 2013, around 100 people, including four former ministers from the AKP cabinet, three of their children, a business tycoon, the former manager of Halkbank and a controversial Iranian-Azeri businessman, Reza Zarrab, were probed. 

Both of the cases against the suspects were separately dropped later in 2014 and the suspects were acquitted. 

A parliamentary vote on January 2015 for the four former ministers also acquitted them from being sent to the Supreme Council to be tried on charges of bribery and corruption.