Main opposition CHP to train all its ballot box officials

ANKARA

Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) will train its ballot box officials who will work in the Istanbul rerun elections on June 23, party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu announced on June 11.

“We will distribute a booklet to our friends who will work at the ballot boxes. We will give them the names of citizens who will vote at those ballot boxes. We will ask them to check the lists that voters leave their signatures on,” Kılıçdaroğlu said at the CHP’s weekly parliamentary group meeting.

“The lists can even be tampered with in the morning of June 23. We will check everything,” he added.

Kılıçdaroğlu also referred to the opposition’s dispute with the Supreme Election Board (YSK) on its decision to renew the elections for Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and said the body “has been discredited in the eyes of the nation.”

He once again questioned YSK’s ruling to renew the elections only for Istanbul mayor and not for the metropolis’ 39 districts or the municipal council, whose majority is made up of members of the ruling party and its ally. The YSK had scrapped the results of the vote for metropolitan municipality mayor, which had been won by the CHP’s candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu.

The party leader also stressed on the effects of unemployment, calling it a “loss of hope for the future.”

“Unemployment is one of the areas where injustice is intense. In Turkey, 8.5 million people are unemployed. A million of them are university graduates. How can 8.5 million people become jobless after 17 years?” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“Those who have unemployed children should ask these [questions]. Those who know how unemployment is a disaster should ask these,” he added.

Kılıçdaroğlu also conveyed that many citizens tell CHP members in their encounters that they want jobs, even though the CHP is not the governing party. “I am curious about how many requests those in power are receiving.”

The party leader also recalled past events in which citizens have committed suicide due to unemployment and urged sensitivity towards these issues.

“A 35-year-old young man from [the southern province of] Adana committed suicide. Do those living in the [presidential] palace know about his mother’s grief? A math teacher in [the Black Sea province of] Kastamonu, a valedictorian, commits suicide because she was not appointed,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“The state needs to think about these. We all need to be sensitive and think about why these people are taking their own lives. We need to think about the policies of 17 years that bring our children to the verge of suicide,” he added.

Kılıçdaroğlu also condemned the “mistreatment” the Turkish national football team received upon their arrival in an Icelandic airport for a Euro 2020 qualifying match on June 11.

“I am deeply saddened that those who have displayed themselves as one of the most important actors of civilization have made us experience an event we cannot accept,” he said.