Breaking News... All eyes were on the Turkish Parliament: Historic support for Özgür Özel at the CHP Group Meeting!

The 38th Ordinary Convention of the CHP, which Özgür Özel won, was canceled by a ruling of absolute nullity, and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was brought to the CHP Chairmanship.

As the absolute nullity crisis in the CHP continues, all eyes turned to the group meeting to be held by the elected Chairman, Özgür Özel.

Lawmakers supporting Özel filled the hall hours in advance. While signatures were being collected for a convention on one hand, slogans such as "Convention," "Free Turkey, Free Future," "Traitor Kemal," and "There is no salvation alone" were chanted on the other.

Many prominent figures of the party, led by former CHP Secretary General Önder Sav, attended the meeting. The management of the CHP's social media accounts had been transferred to Kılıçdaroğlu's team. For this reason, the group meeting was not broadcast live on the party's official accounts.

Özgür Özel's communication account broadcast the meeting live:

The highlights from Özel's speech are as follows:

* Our valuable organization, our mayors, and all our friends who rushed here from all four corners of Turkey to show solidarity, to protect their party, and to protect the Republican People's Party group... I greet you all with respect; it is a good thing you are all here.

* The Parliament has seen many group meetings. It has seen very enthusiastic, very crowded group meetings. But I thank from the bottom of my heart the 3,200 friends who are here today and those waiting in line in front of the Dikmen Gate and the turnstiles to get inside.

"THIS IS NOT JUST A GROUP MEETING..."

* This is not just a group meeting or attending a meeting. This is a visit to protect, to stand on the right side of history, to write history, and to stand tall, resist, and march against the attacks made on the future of the party and the country.

* After a three-week break, we are in the nation's parliament, where we should be, at the podium where we should be, with the duty entrusted to us by the deputies assigned by the nation. As for us, we are as you know us; we have become a bit more skilled at breaking stones and distinguishing friend from foe. Dear friends, each of you here comes from the gears of the party's clock, from the veins of this party, from the red and white blood cells within its veins.

"OUR DUTY IS RESISTANCE AGAINST THE CONSPIRACY"

* (REGARDING THE "TRAITOR KEMAL" SLOGANS) You are those who know the street, hear the street, and see the anger on the street, but our duty today is not to carry the voices of anger and reaction under this supreme roof; our duty is to carry the voices of resistance, struggle, and hope under this roof against a great conspiracy. Since our last group meeting, we have all experienced our May 19th holiday, our blessed Eid al-Adha, and some developments that poisoned our holidays.

* Today is the Gadir-i Hum Festival; today, nearly 1 million of our Arab Alevi citizens are celebrating this holiday where even the fires of hell are extinguished and love, forgiveness, and being forgiven reach their peak... I receive the greetings of those who prayed for us, who carried and conveyed the 100 percent support of the Samandağ district, which gave us 93 percent of the vote in the last elections, and I wholeheartedly celebrate this beautiful holiday of all Arab Alevi citizens.

"ALİ İSMAİL KORKMAZ, AHMET ATAKAN, BERKİN ELVAN..."

* This three-week period also included the 11th anniversary of the Gezi protests, one of the greatest democratic objections in the history of the Republic, which was a great, great struggle. I commemorate with mercy our brothers who lost their lives during that period; Ali İsmail Korkmaz, Ethem Sarısülük, Abdullah Cömert, Mehmet Ayvalıtaş, Ahmet Atakan, Medeni Yıldırım, Hasan Ferit Gedik, and our child Berkin Elvan, and I bow with respect before their memories.

* Furthermore, greetings to my brother Tayfun Kahraman, Mr. Osman Kavala, Can Atalay, Mine Özerden, and Çiğdem Mater, who are still being held inside despite the decisions of the ECHR and the Constitutional Court, after years of a coup conspiracy being fabricated against the Istanbul Solidarity and Taksim Solidarity, who were there in our place in those days, defending peace and brotherhood instead of conflict, putting their hearts on the line so that no one's nose would bleed, defending the trees, and defending Istanbul. We will meet very soon, very soon...

* From here, I remind you once again of Article 6, which the Parliament agreed upon, which the commission chaired by the Speaker of the Parliament agreed upon, and which everyone signed together, saying "Constitutional Court decisions must be complied with, ECHR decisions must be complied with." In the coming days, I invite all deputies in the Parliament to uphold their signatures and their honor for a process where all ECHR and Constitutional Court decisions are implemented without delay.

* Dear friends, we are all elected representatives of the nation. The nation brought us here, and the nation gave us these duties. No matter what we experience, we cannot disconnect from the nation's agenda. We all know that our people and our nation are being crushed under a severe economic crisis today. We are in the midst of a multi-faceted crisis that has been ongoing and worsening since 2018. Yesterday, the hunger and poverty threshold figures for May were announced. And we saw that the hunger threshold rose to 18,969 liras and the poverty threshold to 61,788 liras. In other words, we are in a process where all retirees, all laborers, all blue and white-collar workers, and almost all civil servants are below the poverty threshold, and retirees and minimum wage earners are below the hunger threshold.

"THERE ARE FOUR COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD WITH WORSE INFLATION THAN TURKEY"

* The average age of farmers in the country has reached 58, and two out of every three farmers have reached the point of saying, "If I find a minimum wage job, I won't plant or sow next year, I'll leave the land and go." In a process where a humane life is not possible, Turkey is first in Europe and fifth in the world in food inflation and general inflation. There are four countries in the world with worse inflation than Turkey. These countries are either at war, in civil war, or under bombardment; after the miserable South Sudan, Iran, and Brazil... after Argentina, it is the worst. In geographies whose names we don't know, in countries whose locations are hard to find on the map, inflation is better than ours. To our nation, in the presence of those who try to make other voices heard instead of the nation's voice, despite all this great chaos and turmoil created—which I will also touch upon—I would like to remind our nation of this: Turkey's one-month inflation is higher than the annual inflation of a hundred countries in the world.

* In other words, the country is being managed poorly, managed incompetently; the inflation problem is being solved in the world but is escalating in Turkey. The reason for this is not only incompetent cadres instead of meritocratic, rational, and correct management, but also endless political operations to avoid losing power, and the distrust created by a state that cancels a diploma it issued thirty years ago just so someone doesn't become a rival.

* If it denies the diploma it issued thirty years ago, will it recognize my title deed, will it value my bankbook, will its honor be repaid when it leaves tomorrow? The statement about how long the state's guarantee and word will last where the country's main opposition party has no guarantee is precisely this country's risk premium. It is this country's expensive borrowing. It is this country's high interest rate. It is the economic spiral this country cannot get out of. And we are at such a point that a great paradigm shift, something that shakes everything from top to bottom—that is, they are gone, Turkey has left them behind; those who do not recognize the law, those who do not recognize the court, those who have their rivals imprisoned just to win elections, those who get rid of their rivals one by one just to avoid defeat, and those who do not even mention the 'L' of law just to maintain their power—Turkey has left them behind. Turkey is no longer such a country; the people have won in Turkey, the law has won, justice has won, Turkey's path is clear, and this crisis will not end until it is said that the nation has won in Turkey.

ÖZEL SPOKE FOR 'AKPDEN.COM'

* Today, Turkey's biggest problem is the tax problem. Today, Turkey's biggest problem is the problem of taxes being collected unfairly, unjustly, and inappropriately. In a system where the wealthy of Turkey pay 11 percent of the total tax, where all citizens in Turkey, like those in this hall, pay 64 percent of the tax through indirect taxes regardless of their wealth or poverty, and where those who receive salaries pay 24 percent of the tax through income tax—that is, a system where those who should primarily pay taxes pay one-tenth, and those who should pay little or nothing pay nine-tenths—is an unjust system.

* I made a promise to a young friend, Çınar, he says to me, "How come," he says, "Özgür brother, was akpden.com going to continue?" "It is continuing," I said, "akpden2.com." But I looked, he said, "There is a first car, and there is the computer you mentioned last week, but there is a mobile phone, but you said you would continue, you mentioned a game console, it's one-third the price in America, Özgür brother, will you show that," he said.

* I will show it, my son, I said. And here I am showing it to Çınar. That is the tax system. While one could buy this in Turkey for 44,500 liras, when you say add to cart on akpden.com, if it weren't for the AKP, they say, "Wait a minute, Çınar," "Wait, pay the 8,900 lira customs tax, pay the 10,680 lira special consumption tax, and on top of all these, pay the 12,820 lira VAT, that is, you give 32,400 liras more to Uncle Tayyip and his incompetent ministers for this, if you have 77,000 liras, you can buy your game console, Çınar," they say.

* The Republican People's Party promises to change this system, to eliminate this dark order, and to make Çınar smile. Those who make Çınar and his father miserable are the ones who make a 65,000 lira mobile phone sell for 133,000 liras. They are the ones who take 67,000 liras in tax from a 65,000 lira mobile phone. If Çınar's father had been a civil servant 30 or 40 years ago, or a white-collar or blue-collar worker, and if Çınar's mother had also worked, they would have bought a car every 5 years, they would have bought a house every 10 years. But now, if it is not an inheritance from his father or if he didn't win the national lottery, it is impossible for Çınar's mother and father, who get up at 6 every morning to go to work and come back exhausted, to buy a house or a car by working their whole lives. When someone tries to buy one, Mr. Tayyip appears, takes 1,557,000 liras in tax from a 1,200,000 lira car, and brings it to 2.7 million. This is the AKP's dark order.

"WE ALL HAVE TO TAKE A SIDE TO SEE THE SIDE OF THOSE WHO GRANT AMNESTY TO THEM"

* Why do I say this briefly regarding this hunger? We all have to take a side to see the side of those who take this unfair 90 percent tax from those who shouldn't pay it, those who leave those who pay taxes alone, those who show favoritism to their cronies, those who grant amnesty to cronies in commissions when the crony has earned the money and the tax has been calculated and it is time to pay it.

* Those who do not find a solution to this hunger and misery, those who know they cannot find a solution, those who see that the nation no longer wants this bad management, those who are sure that they will never win an election again, those who refuse to correct themselves and, if necessary, lose a term, learn a lesson, prepare to return to power—that is, a system that makes changes in power possible according to the nation's preference, where the unwanted leaves and the hoped-for comes, where the one who cannot do it leaves and the one who will do it comes, or where the retiree or worker chooses the one who makes the best commitment to them and prefers those who speak policies in their favor and brings them to power—which is the most important achievement of the Republican People's Party, which was founded on the battlefields of this country, then founded the republic, and then brought the multi-party regime and gifted this country the decision to bring whoever the nation wants and take away whoever it wants—they are abandoning that system.

"THOSE WHO DO NOT WANT TO CHANGE AND THOSE WITH LOW PARTICIPATION..."

* They want to return to a formal democracy where the nation is left without candidates, without parties, without institutions, the party without leaders, and the election without alternatives—that is, elections where they are without rivals for themselves or where they determine their own rivals, where those who have the determination and hope for change are left exhausted, resentful of the ballot box, and where those who do not want to change and those with low participation maintain their power with someone else. Whatever we are experiencing, we talk about its internal dynamics, we talk about its external dynamics, but everything we are experiencing stems from the resistance of a reality that rings in the ears, does not leave the mind, and can never be accepted; it stems from the resistance to that reality.

"IT IS A COUP AGAINST THE NEXT GOVERNMENT"

* The truth is that what the nation says happens. Their own saying is that whoever wins Istanbul wins Turkey, and whoever loses Istanbul loses Turkey. After years, Istanbul has decided three times in a row who will govern it, and now that the possibility of that person governing Turkey has become clear, what is being done is a coup against the next president, against the next government; what is happening now is a coup against the party that will come to power.

"I DO NOT BELIEVE THERE IS ANYONE IN THIS HALL WHO CAN DIGEST LOSING ONE MORE TIME"

* Dear friends, let's remember briefly. 3 years ago, we set out together to change this dark order. In the election 3 years ago, Tayyip Erdoğan did not see such a risk for himself, and because he managed to go to an election as he wanted, these things were not happening to the party. We lost an election that we really needed to win, with our mistakes and flaws that we need to talk about a lot, and with things that we can interpret differently now, and we were devastated. I do not believe there is anyone in this hall who, on the morning after that election, did not cry, inside or out, who could swallow bread, cheese, or olives, who could recover for days—that is, who could digest losing, losing one more time. There is no one!

* This understanding, the understanding that says, "We must not lose again, we must not lose again," the understanding that says, "Enough is enough." The understanding that says, "If the CHP changes, Turkey changes; we will change the CHP first, then we will change the government, we will bring Gazi's party back to power," believed in a change together with the youth, the women, and the experienced of all ages, but as said in the 10th Year March, with the youth of all ages, and they realized it.

* The Republican People's Party members, winners and losers alike, had a new medal of honor around their necks in that election. It is the medal of İsmet Pasha, who stood by Gazi, who was the Commander of the Western Front, who was the second president of the country, and who, when he lost the elections to the Democrat Party on May 14, 1950, wrote a note to his aide and sent it to the Democrat Party against those who said, "Surely you won't give it to them, Pasha," saying, "The Pasha is ready for the handover, he congratulates you." It is a democracy medal.

* While the Democrat Party received the title and medal of being the first party in the Republic of Turkey to come to power through elections, through competition, and to change power through elections that day; the medal that registered that democracy had truly arrived by showing respect for the results when losing the election also belonged to İsmet Pasha. In our convention, for the first time in Turkey, a political party chairman changed through a dual race. As big as the medal I have is, the medal of the person who left the chairmanship duty in that election would have been even bigger if he could have left it, if he knew how to leave it.

HARSH DIG AT KILIÇDAROĞLU

* (REGARDING THE "TRAITOR KEMAL" SLOGANS) Friends, friends, friends... Betrayal is a feeling that punishes you not when you hear it from others in a loud voice, but when you feel it inside when you are alone. Therefore, please, in this hall, under this supreme roof, let's wait for the sentences we will build for the future instead of this sentence of anger. Let's chant slogans of hope for the future!

* While we were counting the days to the general elections to come to power, and on one hand, 10 months ago 5 parties together had received 25 percent of the vote in the party, now they have received 38 percent, while in the last poll, in the most optimistic one before the convention, the party's vote was 14 percent, undecided protesters were hovering around 40 percent, with change, hope, the right candidates, young people, women, science, a correct campaign, and a correct strategy, 4 or 5 months after that great change, the Republican People's Party became Turkey's first party with 38 percent of the vote, just like the day it was founded, 47 years later, and became the first party to defeat the AKP since the day it was founded.

* That is why those who see this change, the wind of this change, the determination, the perseverance, those who see that we have made the decision to change the government, those who see that we did not change our shape or understanding when we came to the top, when we won, when we succeeded, those who see that I am not chasing my own candidacy, that I only made a candidate with the vote of the party member and then the 15.5 million after that coup, those who see that when they said, "We threw him in jail, we burned his diploma, he can't be anymore," instead of saying "It's our turn," I said, "Each of us can do this duty, we have very strong candidates who can do this duty, and we definitely have the most correct candidate who will defeat Erdoğan, I will make that decision, I will win the election," those who saw that are the ones who started these things today. They continued the entire process by stooping so low as to unfairly attack families, children, spouses, and friends. We all saw those processes together. Since that day, we have heard many things, open and secret.

"THEY SAID, 'WE ARE USED TO LOSING, WE WILL SIT AT THE HEAD OF THE PARTY'"

* It reached such a point that, as I said, "I am reading the message, I am not there," or to those who whispered here and there, as I said, "I refuse to give up on the march to power, to withdraw from the squares, to return to Ankara, to be a acceptable opposition, to be a party to a formal race rather than the candidate who will win," as I said this, those who ran to Ekrem President's wife in the first days, those who visited in jail, those who objected to the arrest made after the detention process and made a prison visit, those who attended the convention we held and applauded standing up, while on one hand some people said to us, "We ate and finished Ekrem, don't look for another candidate who will win, sit at the head of the party, this is what is acceptable for us," when we gave the answer "No," they said, "Maybe he will be with us, if you give us the party, we will be as you are used to, we will be as you know us, we are used to losing, we will lose one more time and sit at the head of the party."

ÖZEL REVEALED THOSE PEOPLE WHO CAME TO THE CHP HEADQUARTERS

* Before us, before us, before us, there is an alliance of those who could not digest the November 5 convention and those who could not digest the March 31 local elections, that is, the absolute sultan and the absolute nullity. My dear friends, with a court decision in hand, in front of the headquarters with police, pepper spray, plastic bullets, with types who have worked as bodyguards in bars and pavilions until the morning, who have come to the front of the CHP door for the first time in their lives, with belts and knives, coming in front of the youth branches, directly in front of the youth branches...

* They say, "So-and-so was inside, he closed the door." I am saying it clearly, all the records are there. When they came with them in front of the youth branches, if we hadn't had that door closed, things that none of us could accept in this party would have happened in front of these youth branch children, but we protected our children by closing that door, and they caused the greatest shame to this party by leaning against that door. Now let's see the issue. Let's see the issue. Unfortunately, we will solve it quickly, we will show effort, diligence, and courage to solve it.

* But unfortunately, there are currently two images of the Republican People's Party. On one side, our father's hearth where we were thrown out by police force with a nullity ruling and those sitting there; on the other side, those who are trying to protect their party and country under the roof of Gazi's other great work here. While those sitting here today have the merits of protecting democracy even if they lose, serving the nation without discrimination when they win, standing by the right against the wrong, being on the side of the victim, always standing by the oppressed, being a brother to the ant, and trusting only and only in themselves to win, and marching to power with the hope of winning when the day comes; on the other side, there are those who prefer to walk with the current government and are in this party's father's hearth with an unfair, unlawful court decision.

HARSH REACTION TO KILIÇDAROĞLU'S PRESS ADVISOR ATAKAN SÖNMEZ

* You don't know them here, you don't know them, you don't know them. For example, the press advisor at the headquarters today is not a child of this party, not a child of this party, someone who has been receiving a salary from TGRT for 1.5 years, someone who has been dealing with our friends, dealing with our party, fueling lies for 1.5 years, has come and become a press advisor in the party, they are sitting there having sunk to the bottom of the earth to the point of calling the cars bought with the dues you paid to the party, which you earned with your halal sweat, every drop of which is halal, "Haram goods."

* Today, today, those who go from court to court every day, who go from court to court every day, who chase nullity, who arrange false witnesses from here and there, who first deny and then act brazenly every time, those who sucked the blood of this party in the past are now supposedly the party's lawyer against the state in that party, they are trying to withdraw our rightful application in an unfair way. It is not one of us, but others sitting there.

HE FUMED AT THE "DISTRIBUTING CHOCOLATE" IMAGES

* The person who wrote the headline 'He was struck' on the day Ferdi Zeyrek passed away is distributing chocolate at the CHP headquarters because we left.