CHP Chairman Özel: 'We will show our loyalty by bringing our party to power'

Özel stated, "If we are to show loyalty to a chairman of the Republican People's Party and to all its chairmen, we will show it by bringing their party to power."

Özel spoke as follows:

"The word loyalty actually has two meanings for institutions like ours. One is spiritual, the other is material. The spiritual meaning is extremely honorable in terms of feelings of loyalty; it is extremely valuable in terms of acknowledging rights, being remembered, ensuring that efforts do not go to waste, and seeing that the words spoken have not flown away and the writings have not been erased. The material meaning is the emphasis placed on the importance of institutional memory. Institutional memory is an extremely important and valuable step for all work and procedures to be carried out in that institution from now on, especially if this institution is a country's main opposition party, and for all political marches, paths, and destinations to be pursued hereafter."

Reminding that the loyalty night was organized by the CHP's district presidency, Özel noted that his party has embraced this night institutionally at the headquarters level, and that former Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu had attended the night previously, and he was attending today.

"LESSONS MUST BE LEARNED FROM THIS"

Pointing to the importance of the program, Özel said, "If there is to be an example, this work should be taken as an example; if there is a lesson to be learned, a lesson must be learned from this. This is not about not showing loyalty while saying 'We are showing loyalty,' but rather the success of institutional identity being embraced, and reaching these days not by pushing and shoving each other, not by those who find each other's faults, not by those who trip each other up, but by those who have stood in solidarity from that day to this, who have linked arms, who have protected one another, and by embracing the organization with all its levels rather than excluding it."

Emphasizing that in developed countries, the most important loyalty on a national scale is that felt toward the founding cadres of that country, Özel said, "Whether they are alive or not, whether it is the last one or the first one, if we are to show loyalty to a chairman of the Republican People's Party and to all its chairmen, we will show it by bringing their party to power."

During the program, some figures, including Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, Beylikdüzü Mayor Mehmet Murat Çalık, and CHP Istanbul Provincial Chairman Özgür Çelik, also delivered speeches.

The Turkey Loyalty Award was presented to former Minister of Reconstruction and Resettlement Erol Tuncer, and the Lifetime Excellence Award was given to Eskişehir Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Yılmaz Büyükerşen.

Various awards were also presented to some figures from the party.

News Source: AA