CHP Leader Özel's comment on the AK Party congress: Not a renewal, but a transfer fee

İYİ Party Chairman Müsavat Dervişoğlu visited CHP Chairman Özgür Özel at the Party Headquarters yesterday. After the 1.5 hour meeting, Özel and Dervişoğlu made a joint statement.

Özel said regarding the investigation opened against IMM President Ekrem İmamoğlu, “The diploma investigation is a confession of helplessness and a story of black humor. While attacking with great haste, it is also a sixth step taken inexpertly on top of five separate political bans. 31 years have passed since the action taken against İmamoğlu. It is not specific to one person, it is an action taken against all students at that time. It is completely legal. There is no issue here from our perspective. But it is proof of the extent to which judicial harassment has reached and the institutional discomfort İmamoğlu’s candidacy has created in the AK Party and the personal panic Erdoğan has created.”

'That party is exhausted'

Özel also said the following about the presence of deputies who switched to the AKP in the Central Executive Board: “We saw that they were organizing fear, threats, and veiled blackmailing of civil society organizations at the AKP Congress as they did in the past, but what did we see new? People looked and thought, “Maybe we will see something in the cadres,” and it is not newer than the previous ones. If a party that has been ruling the country for 23 years puts someone who was forced to resign from another political party in the evening hours of the day before on its list, this is not called ‘ renewal ’ but ‘transfer fee.’ If the transfer fee on a party’s list is to take office in the highest decision-making body of that party, then that party is already finished and exhausted.”

'The pot has rolled over and found its lid'

İYİ Party Chairman Dervişoğlu also made the following statement regarding the names that left their party and joined the AK Party: “In democracies, the vote cast by the citizen is honor. The honor of the politician is what will protect that honor. The pot has rolled over and found its lid. The fact that they resigned from the İYİ Party and found a place in what they saw as a political shelter must be a question that those who have worked for the AK Party more than I have sought an answer to.”

Not a primary election but a candidacy campaign

The only candidate to enter the primary elections in the CHP, IMM Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, will be in Ankara on February 27. İmamoğlu will first meet with the deputies at the General Directorate in the morning to thank them for the signature support they gave him so that he could run in the primary elections. He will then speak at a meeting where deputies, provincial chairmen, youth and women's branch chairmen will also attend. The program, where Chairman Özel will also speak, is expected to be in the form of a launch for İmamoğlu's candidacy. In his speech, İmamoğlu is reported to call on party members to "show strong participation" in the primary elections on March 23. It is noted that İmamoğlu will launch the campaign, which will effectively turn into a presidential candidacy campaign, with this speech.

'Diploma' preparation

The main agenda items at the CHP Central Executive Committee meeting, which convened under the chairmanship of Chairman Özel yesterday, included preparations for the primary elections , the congress investigation and the “forgery of official documents” investigation launched against İmamoğlu due to the claim that his university diploma was fake. A party official told Milliyet that they had been conducting preparatory work since the moment rumors emerged about the “diploma” investigation, and said, “Opinions were received from universities and administrative lawyers. There are precedents of the Council of State. They all show Ekrem Bey right. There can be no such thing as forgery of documents here. Ekrem Bey is making a proper application, and the administration is the one accepting the application.” / MEHTAP GÖKDEMİR - Ankara