CHP head proud of primaries, pledges deeper intra-party democratization

ANKARA

AA Photo

The head of Turkey’s social-democrat main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has taken pride in his party because it was the sole party in Turkey to hold primary elections, where thousands of CHP members voted on March 29 for their elected candidates ahead of the June 7 parliamentary elections.

Moreover, CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu promised his party’s grassroots will take steps for deeper intra-party democratization in order to provide “real change and transformation” within the main opposition party.

“We said ‘We will do it if we believe in democracy,’ and we did it,” Kılıçdaroğlu said on March 31, as he was addressing a parliamentary group meeting of the CHP, the last before parliament goes into recess for the upcoming election.

“At the next convention, we will make one more amendment in the [party’s] internal regulation. Somebody who used the right to quota once will not be able to use it for a second time,” he said.

According to the CHP’s earlier announced system, candidates who ran in the primaries would be put in the second, fourth, sixth and eighth spots in the electoral districts of Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir, while the remaining top spots are reserved as part of quotas.

“We will make the real change, the real transformation,” Kılıçdaroğlu vowed.

“We held primaries in 55 constituencies. We will make history in Turkey. Inshallah [God willing], we will bring that into action on June 8,” he said, noting around 60 percent of some one million CHP members went to the polling stations for the primaries.

“Now, I’m asking my 77 million citizens: Who is a democrat, who has respect for the nation?” he said.

“There is only one party which has respect [for the nation]; that is the Republican People’s Party.”