İYİ Party head Akşener says she hopes to become Turkey’s first ever woman president

AFYONKARAHİSAR – Doğan News Agency

İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener said on May 28 that she hopes to become Turkey’s first woman president in snap elections on June 24.

“Thank God, 100,000 people gave their signatures in four hours, meaning that I became the first woman to place her [presidential] candidacy with the signature of the people. And with God’s permission, I will be hopefully the first woman president too,” Akşener said during an election rally in the western province of Afyonkarahisar.

She was referring to the more than 100,000 signatures collected as of May 6, necessary in order to qualify to run in the presidential elections.

According to the new presidential election system, a candidate can either be presented by a political party that has received more than 5 percent of the votes in the previous elections or a political party that has a party group in parliament. They can also be an independent candidate if they have collected signatures from 100,000 citizens.

Akşener also said on May 28 that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was responsible for Turkey’s current economic troubles because “production has not been put at the center of the economy.”

She noted that there are currently millions of people in Turkey struggling with major credit card debts, which she vowed to “wipe out.”

“We will erase these [debts] once and for all. They [AKP] have gotten mad [at us], asking how we will do this. We will establish a solidarity fund for it. Some 8 billion Turkish Liras [$1.7 billion] is needed,” Akşener said, adding that this money would be collected by cutting back on extravagant state spending on top officials.

“Ministries, undersecretaries, CEOs, their wives, sons, daughters and in-laws are all using luxury cars that are paid for from your pockets. The price of that is 8 billion liras,” she said.