CHP leader bashes government over economy, COVID-19

ANKARA

Turkey has been passing through a severe economic recession and the government does not have an efficient program to reverse the situation, the main opposition leader has said, also slamming it for failing to implement a strategy to fight against the spread of the coronavirus and for distorting the figures concerning the COVID-19.

“The economic crisis is deepening. The number of unemployed has hit 10 million. This is a record in the republic’s history,” Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party [CHP] told the members of the Party Assembly in an online meeting on Sept. 8.

Kılıçdaroğlu claimed tens of thousands of children go to bed hungry as the poverty increased in an unprecedented way in the country. “Turkey got caught up in a debt trap. But they [the government] argue things are fine,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, adding that the public deficit has already hit 139 billion Turkish Lira only in seven months of 2020, marking yet another record.

Stating that round more than 50 percent of the Turkish people’s savings deposited in the banks are in foreign currencies, Kılıçdaroğlu said, “That shows the people do not trust in the national currency and therefore in the governmental policies.”

‘COVID-19 figures untrue’

Kılıçdaroğlu did also touch on the ongoing surge of the COVID-19 patients in the country, stating that “Everybody knows that the real figures are much higher than the declared ones. It’s known that the government figures do not correspond to the reality.”

The government is not pursuing a strategic and scientific line in the fight against the novel coronavirus because of the political interventions by Erdoğan, “The hospitals, the incentive care units are full of patients. This shows the state is not well governed,” he said.

The CHP leader recalled that the government had promised to deliver the masks free of charge to all the citizens but failed to do so and said, “They should be grateful to the municipalities run by the CHP. If the public unrest did not occur during the pandemic, it is thanks to the CHP municipalities who rushed to the help of the people without any discrimination despite the governmental blockage. They have even confiscated the donations [pledged to the municipalities].”