Youth will determine outcome of June 24 elections: PM Yıldırım
ERZİNCAN
Turkey’s youth will determine the outcome of the June 24 presidential and parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said, while adding that constitutional amendments of the 2017 referendum lowered the age to be elected from 25 to 18.
“We have made the constitutional amendments for you. Because of that, the June 24 elections will be the election of the youth, they will decide on the future. I congratulate you on your decision from now,” Yıldırım said at a youth event in the eastern province of Erzincan on May 13.
“The age to be elected was not 18, it was 25 before. Now, we believe that if you can vote at the age of 18, you should be elected at that age too. Those who choose can be chosen,” the prime minister added.
Yıldırım stressed that young people make up the majority of Turkey’s population, adding that “they are our present and the future.”
“Today you may not make up 100 percent of the population. But you will in the future. Politicians who do not have goals for the future or are not young at heart cannot give anything to this country. They cannot understand the spirit of young people. They think the youth are people who can be fooled and manipulated easily,” he said.
“But today’s youth analyze the conditions of Turkey and the world correctly, they make decisions accordingly. Neither separatists nor the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization [FETÖ] can manipulate this country’s young people, who are always guarding their history and culture,” he added.
