Gov’t should resign if election safety cannot be ensured, CHP leader says

GAZİANTEP – Anadolu Agency

CİHAN photo

The government should resign unless it can ensure safe elections, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) has stated during a press conference at the Journalist Association in the southeastern province of Gaziantep.

Kılıçdaroğlu underlined that early elections are being held due to the “greed” and “grudge” of a single person, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. 

“We are not talking of early polls but repeat elections,” he said. “Why are we holding a repeat election? [Because Erdoğan is saying], ‘You did not do as I said, so I will take you to the polls until you submit.’”

In response to a question on ensuring election safety, Kılıçdaroğlu pointed at a “vacuum of authority” stemming from a double-headed management. The CHP head said the government should resign in the event it fails to ensure security.  

“There is a serious vacuum of authority. Who is running this country? Is the prime minister or the illegal palace [referring to the controversial presidential palace in Beştepe] running the country? If there is a double-headed management, it in fact means there is no management,” Doğan News Agency reported Kılıçdaroğlu as saying. 

“This is the main problem Turkey faces today. Can there be elections? Why not? If they can’t ensure safe elections, they should urgently resign,” he said.

Meeting with journalists from Gaziantep a day after Ankara police raided Gülen-linked Koza İpek companies, which include Kanaltürk and Bugün television stations, Kılıçdaroğlu also touched upon the importance of press freedoms. 

“If we are fighting for democracy in Turkey, we must begin by fighting for a free media. We cannot speak of a democracy if there is no freedom of the press,” he said. 

The operation in Ankara against the “Fethullahist Terror Organization (FETÖ),” referring to the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) ally-turned-nemesis Fethullah Gülen, was interpreted as a move to silence the media.

Kılıçdaroğlu also explained his views of the eruption of violence between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) by arguing social peace could not be maintained through arms. 

“This question can [only] be solved in parliament. There are four fundamental rules to sustaining social peace. First, you will be honest. Are they? Two, you will not have a personal agenda. The gentleman at the palace has. Three, you will not make deals that you cannot account for. Four, you will inform the public,” he said.