New budget adopted will put burden on citizens: İYİ Party leader

ANKARA

İYİ (Good) Party Chair Meral Akşener has criticized the 2021 budget that has been adopted in the parliament, saying that it would be a burden on the public.

She said she expected the government to have a budget-saving approach, but her expectation failed.

“The formula for making a budget is quite simple. You either increase your income or cut your spending. The budget for 2021 is a budget that will not cure our nation, on the contrary, it will increase the burden on them [citizens]. This budget is the budget of the bankruptcy of the partisan presidential system,” Akşener said, addressing his party members at the parliament on Dec. 22.

“If the nation is saving, the government should also save. While 83 million people are saving, I hoped the government would give up on what they were doing,” she stated, suggesting that the government was wasting money for its own good.

Elaborating on issues regarding foreign affairs, the politician said that the sanction decision taken by the United States for Turkey’s purchase of Russian-made S-400 air defense systems was the result of the lack of vision.

Akşener also criticized the government’s foreign policy regarding Turkey’s withdrawal of its troops from some of the observation points in the Idlib province of Syria, along with the policy of Ankara towards Uyghur Turks in China.

“The fact that our observation points in Idlib, which is a national issue for us, have been quietly abandoned by the government and its small partner is the result of incompetence,” she said, referring the latter to the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the ruling party’s partner of People’s Alliance.

“The inability to say even a single word to China, who is oppressing our East Turkestan brothers, is the result of this incompetence,” she also said.

Regarding the eastern Mediterranean issues, Akşener criticized the government for seeking mediation efforts by the European Union, which she said tried to isolate Turkey.