Türkiye at crossroads, CHP leader says

ANKARA

Türkiye is at a crossroads, and the next elections will show which way the country will follow, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader has said, calling on the citizens to vote in the next elections.

“We are at a crossroads. Are we going to be in favor of an authoritarian regime or democracy? We are in favor of democracy, we defend democracy,” Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said in a public rally in the Central Anatolian town of Sivas over the weekend.

Recalling the country will hold simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections next year, the CHP leader called on every single citizen to vote and check whether the voting and counting procedures are well run.

“Everyone will perform his or her responsibility. They will check the votes,” he said, underlining that no anybody can cheat in the elections if people protect the ballot boxes and their votes. “There is no more powerful than the people itself. We will embrace the government for the people,” he stressed.

The six-party opposition alliance has a common perspective for Türkiye, and all the leaders want it to be a strong and democratic nation, Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“We want a Türkiye where everyone can express his or her thought freely. We want a Türkiye where all the expenses will be transparently exposed to the people. We want our children to go to good schools with good teachers,” he stated.

In the meantime, Kılıçdaroğlu, in a televised interview over the weekend, said he had contributed to the removal of the headscarf ban for female university students a decade ago after he became the chair of the Social Democrat Party, recalling that he had a conversation with the former head of the Supreme Education Board, Yusuf Ziya Özcan, and told him that the CHP is willing to remove all the obstacles before the headscarf wearing in universities.

“Right after this conversation, Mr. Özcan instructed the removal of the ban through a written regulation. Therefore, this is me who initiated the removal of this ban in universities,” he suggested.