AKP to heed Gül’s veto on pensions

ISTANBUL / ANKARA

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says they will review the bill following the president’s veto and reassess the 42 to 60 percent rate. AFP photo

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) will make changes to much-criticized legislation hiking lawmaker pensions after President Abdullah Gül refused to sign the bill and returned it to Parliament, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said yesterday.

“We will review the bill following the president’s veto. We will reassess the 42 to 60 percent rate and make a decision to pass it accordingly. Of course, we will take into consideration the president’s view when making our decision,” Erdoğan told reporters in Istanbul a day after Gül rejected the proposed law.
Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who had urged Gül to veto the bill, congratulated the president for his decision. “President Gül restored the credibility of Parliament,” he told reporters in Ankara.

“I have told the Parliament speaker these increases should be implemented in a more transparent and civilized environment. Doing it at midnight, even if the increase is just one lira, damages Parliament’s respectability,” he said.

Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli said his deputies would again vote against the bill even if it were amended unless the AKP brought to Parliament a long-awaited legal arrangement to eradicate differences between the pensions of millions of retired civil servants living in poor conditions.
“Once this issue is solved, we can talk about any remaining problems regarding the pensions of lawmakers,” he said.

The vetoed bill, which will be revised after Parliament returns from its year-end recess in January, raised lawmaker pensions from 4,980 Turkish Liras to around 8,000 liras.