Turkey’s 2019 elections will be a contest between a one-man regime and democracy: CHP head

ANKARA

Turkey’s local, presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in 2019 will be a choice between a “one-man regime” and “democracy,” main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said.

“We will go have elections in 2019 and we will vote either for a one-man regime ... or for a democratic country, a democratic parliamentary system for our children,” Kılıçdaroğlu said in a speech in Ankara on Nov. 16.

The parliamentary and presidential elections due to be held jointly in November 2019 will be crucial as the constitutional changes narrowly approved in the April 2017 referendum will fully go into effect, the CHP head stressed.

“As we enter the 2019 process, we have two options: A democratic parliamentary system or a one-man regime,” he said.

“How can this country emerge into the daylight if all its problems are loaded onto the shoulders of one man and then that person simply gets fooled?” Kılıçdaroğlu added.

“We have to think about this. A person can make mistakes, they can have weaknesses. That is why in democracies there is a system of balances. There is the judiciary, the executive and the legislative,” he said.

The CHP leader also blasted Turkey’s troubled current democratic record.

“Turkey is experiencing the deepest crisis in its history. Journalists, lawmakers, lawyers, judges and prosecutors are in jail just because they expressed their thoughts. Many students have been in jail waiting for an indictment for up to 600 days. Our democracy is losing blood,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“This is not an issue of one professional association or one political party. This is an issue of Turkey. You have a responsibility, as the enlightened people of this country, as much as I do. Democracy is not something to be left only to politics,” he added.