CHP leader close to ‘rebelling’ against PM Erdoğan

ESKİŞEHİR/ANKARA

Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu speaks in Eskişehir, June 15. AA Photo

With his increasingly aggressive rhetoric, the prime minister shows no sign of awareness that he is responsible for ruling Turkey, the main opposition leader has said, adding that such rhetoric is disconcerting for all citizens, including himself.

“We need serenity. There is a man in fury, he comes out and speaks. How? He pushes the limits of manners,” Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said on June 15, speaking of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

“He is incorporating his own family, his own children into his corruption,” Kılıçdaroğlu added, while addressing a gathering of 234 CHP member mayors from across the country in the Central Anatolian province of Eskişehir. He was referring to allegations that surfaced with the Dec. 17, 2013 corruption probe, which indicated the involvement of Erdoğan and his children in huge levels of graft.

“What kind of humanity is this? I have difficulty in understanding. I can hardly keep myself from rebelling. What kind of humanity?” the CHP leader said, adding that Erdoğan was “neither faithful nor conscientious.”

Calling on everybody to be “united for the country’s sake” and recalling that each citizen had a duty to fulfill toward this aim, Kılıçdaroğlu said Erdoğan was dividing the country. “We shall never make [geographical] discrimination by saying the East, the West, the North and the South. He drags the country into the Middle East quagmire and you come up with a heroic discourse, as if we were the ones who took down the Turkish flag in Mosul,” he said.

Erdoğan recently responded harshly to opposition criticism of the way his government has handled the crisis over the kidnapping of dozens of Turkish nationals by a jihadist group in neighboring Iraq.

“Turkey is a great country. All the necessary steps will be made calmly. Our first priority is the security of our citizens. This is why we cannot act the same way as the opposition. They don’t carry any weight on their shoulders,” Erdoğan said on June 13, rebuking the opposition for trying to “exploit” the kidnappings in the Iraqi city of Mosul, while assuring that intense diplomatic efforts were being carried out to secure the release of 80 hostages being held by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.

Kılıçdaroğlu called on Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government to act with “common sense.” “He is not even aware that he has been running the country. A country cannot be governed via fighting,” he said.

An exact name for presidential candidacy

Meanwhile, speaking to reporters following the gathering, Kılıçdaroğlu hinted that he would propose a name to Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli during their meeting on June 16, when they will consult over the nomination of a joint candidate to run against the AKP’s candidate, likely to be Erdoğan, in the August presidential election.

“Tomorrow, our views regarding this issue will be more clearly expressed,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, after a reporter recalled that the CHP’s Eskişehir mayor, Yılmaz Büyükerşen, was being frequently cited as the possible opposition presidential candidate.

“I will go with a proposal,” the CHP head replied, without giving any specific clues.