AKP is the party of the future: Erdoğan

ANKARA

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is not only a political establishment of Turkey’s past 18 years but also an organization that is capable to serve the future of the country, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Jan. 25, calling on the party’s grassroots to prove this to electorates.

“I have an important expectation from all our organizations, whether they continue their duties or take on a new duty. We will show that the AKP is not only the party of the last 18 years but also of the future,” Erdoğan said at his party’s online provincial conventions in Denizli, Mersin and Uşak

He called on the AKP members “to win hearts and then ask for votes.”

Erdoğan urged the party members to knock on every door, listen to the troubles of people, learn their expectations, provide necessary help to solve their issues, and thus “make a place in their hearts.”

“If there is even one person in our country that we have not reached in this way, that we have not touched, this is a shortcoming that we need to make up for immediately,” he added.

Erdoğan said his party is proud to provide Turkey “a lot more than all the things” in just 18 years compared to those done in the history of the Republic.

The president criticized the policies of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and underestimated its efficiency as an opposition party.

“In fact, there is no politics of CHP in Turkey. It is even controversial whether there is a party called CHP. Is the CHP not working at all? Of course, it has a mission,” Erdoğan said.

He referred to the opposition parties, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) and IYİ (Good) Party, as being on the opposite sides of a scale and the CHP balancing them.

“We can compare this to a scale. There is HDP on one side of the scale and İYİ Party on the other. The task of the CHP is to balance this scale,” Erdoğan stated.

“I would like to express with regret that none of the main opposition actors and cadres that we came across have competed with us for work and service politics,” he said.