Nationalist party leader speaks on 'dishonorable' debate

ANKARA

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The nationalist party leader backed his remarks accusing the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) voters who are “sipping their whiskies in their seaside residences along the Bosphorus” as “dishonorable.”

“As it’s an obligation to be unafraid of saying ‘thief’ to robbers, it’s a high and national responsibility to say dishonorable to those [who are] inglorious,” Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli posted on his Twitter account late Aug. 4.

“Those who say ‘silence the arms, don’t go back to 90s, take hands away from triggers’ under the narcosis of democracy and settlement are those who harbor the PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party],” he said.

“Bohemian attitudes, spoilt dispositions and easy fads” have nothing to do with honor, the MHP leader said.

Bahçeli earlier sparked a debate with the HDP, criticizing the “dishonorable, whisky-drinking rich people” who voted for the HDP instead of the MHP.

“Those poor people who carried the HDP to the parliament [and] those dishonorable people sipping their whiskies in their seaside residences along the Bosphorus… Now go and form a coalition with the HDP,” Bahceli told his party at a weekend address.

Bahçeli slammed the rich of society for casting their votes to the HDP just to stop the Justice and Development Party (AKP) from gaining a parliamentary majority. 

Selahattin Demirtaş, co-chair of the HDP, responded to Bahçeli’s remarks on Aug. 3. “The HDP is Istanbul’s third party. The HDP garnered more votes than the Turkish nationalists who cannot even speak proper Turkish. The HDP collected votes from the poorest districts of Istanbul. That’s how it became the third party,” Demirtaş said. 

“Needless to say; rich people probably also voted for the HDP. All of our voters are respectable to us. To those who insult our electors, I return these insults tit-for-tat,” he added. 

Recalling that Bahçeli promised his voters that he would go after “thieves” before elections in reference to the massive corruption and graft claims surrounding senior AKP officials, Demirtaş said, “They shouldn’t be using the word honor; they should know their place.”