Main opposition leader: Message by delegates at convention taken

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"We should see what our pros and cons are and what complaints we have,” the CHP leader said. AA Photo

Turkey’s main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu says he has taken on broad messages given by delegates of the main opposition party during the party’s extraordinary convention, which saw him re-elected as party leader.

Kılıçdaroğlu was speaking to daily Hürriyet after the results of an election for a 60-seat Party Assembly was announced early Sept. 7.

On the first day of the convention, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) had already voted to keep Kılıçdaroğlu as leader in favor of his challenger Muharrem İnce, the former deputy parliamentary group chair.

“Every convention ends with lessons that should be taken by both the leader and members of the Party Assembly; and we need to see these lessons. We should see what our pros and cons are and what complaints we have,” the CHP leader said.

Some 1,218 delegates voted in the election during that saw names like Enis Berberoğlu, Mehmet Bekaroğlu and Zekeriya Temizel being elected as newcomers to the Party Assembly in line with Kılıçdaroğlu’s preference.

Berberoğlu was editor-in-chief of daily Hürriyet from 2010 until recently. Bekaroğlu is the former deputy chair of the now-dissolved People’s Voice Party (HSP), while Temizel served as finance minister between 1997 and 1999 and later chaired the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) from 2000 to 2001.

“We need to assess every decision that is made at the convention and the convention itself. The delegates this time voiced their displeasure within a certain framework,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, as he pledged to take results of each of the voters into consideration.

“But while taking these into consideration, one should also be aware that the aim is coming to power. That’s to say, we need to work harder,” he said.

Meanwhile, CHP Deputy Chair Faruk Loğoğlu, a veteran retired diplomat who also served as the undersecretary of the Foreign Ministry in the early 2000s, was not nominated by Kılıçdaroğlu for the Party Assembly. Another former senior diplomat, Murat Özçelik, Turkey’s former ambassador to Iraq and also the former chief of the Undersecretariat of Public Order and Security, was nominated to the Party Assembly with Kılıçdaroğlu’s support, but was unable to receive enough votes.