CHP leader vows to solve Turkey’s acute problems

ISTANBUL

The acute problems of Turkey at the national and local level can be solved under the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) rule, the party’s leader has vowed, calling on the electorate to think twice about the main reasons of the country’s fundamental problems before casting their votes.

“We will solve the problems of one-and-a-half million people in Istanbul who do not have certificates of ownership. We will resolve all these kinds of acute problems. We will solve all these so that the people’s confidence in politicians will increase. The only way to resolve a problem is to use one’s mind and not to think of own personal gains,” CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said at a meeting in Maltepe district of Istanbul on March 24.

This is one of the most beautiful days for me, Kılıçdaroğlu said, as he distributed certificates of ownership to Maltepe residents.

“The number of people that suffer from the absence of such certificates in Istanbul is one-and-a-half million. But they [the government] do not want to deal with them. This shows an absence of a will,” he said.

Ekrem İmamoğlu, the CHP and İYİ (Good) Party’s joint candidate for Istanbul, will certainly deal with this issue and solve it, Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“Once when we make a promise, we keep it. Turkey has so many deep-rooted problems. Why do people still have to collect food from garbage bins? Why are some people still making a living by collecting plastic and paper from the garbage? Why are eight million people unemployed? You can only solve them if you can deal with them firmly,” he said.

Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) mayors are deliberately delaying dealing with the problems of the people who have not received certificates of ownership for their properties because of the property values in some districts like Üsküdar on the Anatolian side.

“They force them to leave their properties as part of urban transformation projects, because these places have a view of the Bosporus. ‘You have no money, go and live in some other district,’ they tell you. But they themselves have been living in such beautiful districts for years,” he said.

Recalling that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan mockingly calls him “Mister Kemal,” Kılıçdaroğlu said he “liked being called like this.”

“It’s very good to be Mister Kemal. One needs to be honest to be a Mister Kemal. To be Mister Kemal, one has to solve people’s problems. To be Mister Kemal, you should create a country in which no child goes to bed hungry. It’s not easy to be Mister Kemal,” he said.