Özgür Özel's 'minimum wage' outburst: 'Either they will give it, or we will take it by force'

Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Özgür Özel visited the CHP Edirne Provincial Headquarters and the Edirne Municipality while in Edirne to attend the 663rd Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling event. 

'WE SAID THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE, WE OBJECTED'

Making statements during his visit to the Provincial Headquarters, Özgür Özel recalled the 'We Cannot Make Ends Meet' rally in Gebze and stated the following: 

"Last week, we held a labor rally. We said four things there. One, wipe out the credit card interest for tradespeople, farmers, and individuals struggling. Split the principal amount. Remove the 30 percent tax on this and provide relief to the people. Two, increase base prices; for example, it should be 15 liras for wheat. They gave the cost. Increase the base prices. Give a good price for sunflowers. Protect grapes, hazelnuts, tea, and citrus. Third, the pension cannot be 10 thousand liras. Bring this to the level of a minimum wage. Lastly, at least make an inflation adjustment to the minimum wage; the 17 thousand lira minimum wage today is equivalent to 13 thousand liras on the day it was given. It will drop to 9 thousand liras towards the end of the year. We said this is unacceptable. We objected."

'MINIMUM WAGE MESSAGE'

Delivering a message regarding the minimum wage, Özel noted the following:

"We repeat it from here. Either they will grant the raise to the minimum wage, or we will take it by force. We say it once again. If you make the raise, the problems will not end. But at least there will be some livelihood. But if there is no livelihood, don't worry, there will be an election soon. We thank you all. We wish Mayor Filiz and our municipal council members success. We thank all of you who rushed to the family home today. Beautiful people from all four corners of Turkey came to Edirne today. We wish success to all the wrestlers and all the brave hearts competing. We say may the best one win. But in the end, we want our Edirne to win, we want you to win."

"OUR MAIN GOAL IS TO MAKE ATATÜRK'S PARTY THE GOVERNMENT"

In his speech during his visit to the Edirne Municipality, Özgür Özel said, “We came to the Edirne Municipality today with great pleasure. We were welcomed at the door of the municipality by a female Mayor in her 40s and her very young team. Edirne transferred this building, where dear Recep Gürkan served in the past term, to Ms. Filiz with a handover of the flag, in peace, and with new energies and hopes. We wish success to both her and the municipal council members elected from all political parties.”

Özel continued his speech as follows:

“Our deputies and provincial administrators welcomed us in Edirne today. We are here with a very strong representation. Both our Secretary General, our Deputy Chairmen, our members of the presidential board, and our deputies are here. Our metropolitan mayors and provincial mayors are here. Many of our provincial chairmen, especially our Istanbul Provincial Chairman, are here. We will witness another very historic day. I had come many times before, but this is my first time here as Chairman. As our Union of Municipalities President and Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor pointed out, the first capital, the Ottoman capital Bursa, then Edirne, then Istanbul. All three have become CHP-run in these elections. Aside from those who see the good sides of the Ottoman Empire and never take responsibility for the bad, we have always commemorated those who served the Ottoman Empire, with its good and bad, and all those who contributed to the Republic of Turkey reaching these days, with gratitude. Of course, as a son of Manisa, the only city that the Ottomans turned into a palace outside of these three major cities, the three capitals, we are here. When Fatih Sultan Mehmet was 19, in 1451, upon learning of his father's death, he jumped on his white horse and set off for Edirne, saying, 'Let those who love me follow me.' Two years after arriving in Edirne and reaching the capital, he conquered Istanbul. Today, we are not accompanied by such political conquests, but by mayors who have conquered hearts, led by Mayor Ekrem, Mayor Filiz, the Bursa Metropolitan Municipality, and the Tekirdağ Municipality. Many mayors from Turkey are here. Cities are no longer conquered by the sword; they are conquered by hearts, they are conquered by service. Mayor Ekrem repeated his success from the previous term together with our organization, increasing and refreshing trust. After many long years, we won Bursa, which we wanted very much. We achieved very important successes in many cities. That is why we are here today as the CHP family in a very strong way. But there is one thing we all know: in the first local elections of the centenary of the Republic, we achieved a great success after 47 years with a 38 percent vote share. This big family achieved this success. We achieved it all together. But our main goal is to make Atatürk's party the government in the first general elections of the second century of the Republic. To have a CHP member elected as the President of the Republic of Turkey. We are all motivated by this. We are all working for this together. We believe we will succeed.”

News Source: 12punto