Turkish President Erdoğan urges voters to flock to ballot boxes in local polls
AĞRI
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on all citizens to flock to ballot boxes on March 31 to cast their votes in the local elections.
“I urge all my brothers and sisters in the country to go to the ballot boxes on March 31,” Erdoğan told an election rally in the eastern province of Ağrı on March 25.
“Each vote not cast in fact means surrendering to other choices,” he added. “In order not to be regretful after the elections, we must go to the ballots and vote according to our preference.”
Ağrı will give an “Ottoman slap to terrorist-supporting tyrants” at the ballot box, Erdoğan said.
Recalling a recent rally in the southeastern Diyarbakır province, Erdoğan claimed: “Our Kurdish brothers were crying” there because the previous municipalities did not take care of the citizens.
He warned against those who want “to pit Kurds and Turks against each other.” “We don’t have any problems with Kurds, Turks, Laz, Abaza, Circassian,” he stated.
“Those who say that they pursue policies for Kurds are an enemy to this country,” he said.
“They will not be able to divide our country,” he added. Those who are “attacking our unity” are trying to kill the future of the country, Erdoğan stated.
Voters should give “necessary lessons” to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) in the local elections, the president said, claiming the party was against Turkey’s national anthem and flag.
He said supporters of the HDP did not “hold Turkish flags” at rallies.
Ağrı suffered for years from terror, but now it is time for this city to rise, he said, adding that his government “has brought Ağrı to a very good place by appointing trustees and we will carry it further.”
Ağrı’s previous co-mayor Sırrı Sakık, from the HDP, was ousted from his post by the Interior Ministry and the other co-mayor, Mukaddes Kubilay, was arrested in 2016. They were replaced by government-appointed trustees.
The world-famous U.S. sportswear firm Nike will establish a factory in eastern Turkey and provide employment to 5,000 people, Erdoğan also said.
