CHP head accuses president of ‘meddling with everything’

ANKARA

AA Photo

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has criticized President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for interfering in every aspect of the government’s work and for “talking too much.”

“A president should not meddle with everything, but he meddles with everything,” Kılıçdaroğlu told reporters on Feb. 26, stressing that the president should act “worthy of his seat.”

“He cannot understand this. He speaks out every day,” he said, citing Erdoğan’s recent continued criticism of Central Bank Governor Erdem Başçı.

If any politicians should talk about the issue, it should be the prime minister or the minister responsible for the Bank, the CHP leader said.

In a public speech delivered earlier on Feb. 25, Erdoğan had stepped up his criticism of Başçı and the Central Bank, questioning whether the Bank was under “external influence” and warning that the good character of its governor was no defense against poor policy.

“You are not the chief executive. You are the president. You have to embrace 77 million citizens from that seat,” CHP head Kılıçdaroğlu said, also criticizing both Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and Erdoğan for speaking with “different purposes” over the evacuation of the Tomb of Süleyman Şah.

On that issue, Kılıçdaroğlu said the government’s foreign policy had “collapsed” and isolated Turkey from the world.

He also touched on the issue of a government official attending the Feb. 25 meeting of daily Taraf, saying the media in Turkey was not free.

“If the media does not have freedom in a country, then its people do not either,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, adding that even deputies in parliament are witnessing the same pressure from the government that others are feeling.