CHP repeats call for new COVID-19 strategy

ANKARA

The main opposition party has reiterated its call for a new strategy in the fight against COVID-19 and underlined the need for accurate reporting of the new infection cases in line with universal guidelines.

“Give up the struggle against doctors, but instead focus on fighting the pandemic and give up playing with the numbers. Let a spokesperson on behalf of the Science Board announce the data collected in line with the international standards,” Faik Öztrak, the spokesperson for the Republican People’s Party (CHP), told reporters after a weekly meeting at the party on Oct. 5.

The CHP criticizes the government for underreporting the spread of the novel coronavirus as daily dissemination of the data includes only the patients and not asymptomatic COVID-19 cases.  

“A new strategy prepared by the Science Board should be announced to the attention of both our people and the world in order to protect our people as well as our national interests,” Öztrak stated.

Health Minister Fahrettin Koca had earlier defended the partial reporting of the figures, saying they had to protect national interests along with the people.

The CHP spokesperson expressed his party’s objection to the opinions voiced by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its main ally, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), for the re-structuring of the Constitutional Court.

“Wasn’t the Constitutional Court designed in line with the new [executive presidential] system. All its members are being appointed by the chairman of the AKP, [President] Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Who made this tutelage system on the supreme justice?” he asked.

The move follows some rulings by the top court which disappointed the AKP and the MHP, Öztrak said. “Both men have no tolerance to any objection in front of their arbitrary ruling of the country.”