‘Kılıçdaroğlu’s pictures are an insult to public:’ President Erdoğan

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for promoting himself, saying that recent photographs of the latter taken during the “Justice March” are “an insult to the public.”

“He sits in a caravan, having dinner wearing an undershirt. Today, I see a newspaper with a headline that reads ‘citizen Kemal.’ It is an insult to my citizens,” Erdoğan said on Aug. 22 speaking to local heads.

His comments came after never-before-seen photographs of main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s Justice March were published in a book called “Those Who Seek Justice on the Roads.”

Following Kılıçdaroğlu in his 25-day march from Ankara to Istanbul, the frame photographed by Selahattin Sönmez in which Kılıçdaroğlu is having dinner in a trailer has particularly attracted a media attention.

Daily Hürriyet reported on the book in an article on Aug. 22 with the headline "Citizen Kemal."
 
“A political leader, above all, a leader of the main opposition party, calls on a journalist and instructs the journalist to take pictures of him, then claims to lead Atatürk’s party. Have you ever seen Atatürk having his picture taken while having dinner with an undershirt on?” Erdoğan added.

“These are tragicomic pictures. They are making themselves look pitiful with those images,” he added.


Alternative party promises ‘old Turkey’

Erdoğan also criticized the former dissident member of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Meral Akşener’s effort to establish a new political party.

“Those who drift around as an alternative, promise only one thing, that is to revive the old Turkey,” Erdoğan said as Akşener, along with the other former MHP names set to form a new party in October.

“Is it possible to long for the old Turkey of coalitions, crisis, misery, and poverty, with corruption of every kind and unlawfulness?” Erdoğan said.

“Why do they want our country to go back to those times? Because they are afraid of the nation,” he added.