CHP leader Özgür Özel: 'We will determine our presidential candidate'

CHP Chairman Özgür Özel spoke at his party's parliamentary group meeting. Who will be the CHP's presidential candidate? Following the statements made by Istanbul Provincial Chairman Özgür Çelik, all eyes turned to the group meeting.

The meeting began with a moment of silence in memory of the 78 people who lost their lives at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the Bolu Kartalkaya Ski Center.

BADGE PINNED ON KAVAF, WHO RESIGNED FROM DEVA

Following this, Selma Aliye Kavaf, who recently announced her resignation from the DEVA Party, came to the podium and had her badge pinned on by CHP leader Özgür Özel.

Kavaf said the following:

"The reason I am under the roof of the CHP today is the rule of law and the pursuit of justice. I would like to thank our Chairman Özgür Özel, who brought me together with you under this roof, our Manisa Provincial Chair İlksen Hanım, our Metropolitan Mayor Ferdi Zeyrek, and everyone who trusted and encouraged me."

Özgür Özel, who then took the podium, began his remarks with his assessments regarding the fire that broke out at the Grand Kartal Hotel in the Bolu Kartalkaya Ski Center.

'78 PEOPLE, 36 OF THEM CHILDREN, DIED, A CONGRESS WAS AWAITED'

Özel stated the following:

"We knew the figure was over 70, but we told those who knew this: let the authorities announce it, let there be no speculation. The real figures were announced 6 hours and 10 minutes after we knew the number. We were asking, 'What are they waiting for?' We wondered if there were people who hadn't lost their lives and if we were waiting for that. Unfortunately, the number is 78, 36 of them children, and what we were waiting for was a party congress. The badge ceremony of the person who makes the harshest criticisms of the party we were waiting for. We learned, some of us angrily, some of us grumbling, but all of us with our hearts wounded, that a party's congress could take precedence over a country's mourning. Hours later, when I arrived in Kartalkaya, we offered our condolences to the Ministers and sat down to receive information. While the nation was receiving the small bodies of their children whom they had taken on vacation as a report card gift, I said there too that I did not find it right for a minister to come out and create controversy with lies out of a sense of guilt. There was a panic; there was a panic in front of us from those trying to clean the dirt on their hands. Regardless of whose it is, we were in favor of conducting a fair, transparent investigation, and we still are. But on the other hand, those trying to carry out a perception operation served a document dated 2007, given by the AK Party, to cast suspicion on our municipality. They served it to cast suspicion on our municipality. Then they made the Anadolu Agency and our TRT, which survives on all of our salaries, a tool for this. By making the Anadolu Agency, which the Gazi (Atatürk) had founded, and our TRT, whose salaries we all pay with our taxes, a tool, they embarked on a new perception operation by describing and serving the fire as a 70-square-meter cafeteria outside the hotel, which has no connection to the hotel, as the restaurant where the fire started and which the Bolu Municipality had licensed. We had to refute the Anadolu Agency and demand a correction from TRT. I am addressing the managers who sent us apologies in sealed envelopes with embarrassed expressions; you will remain under the weight of this shame. Do not repeat it!"

HE RESPONDED WITH THE PHOTOGRAPH OF THE EXPERT COMMITTEE

Özel responded with a document to Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç, who first called the preliminary expert report that he himself shared with the public "pirated." Holding the photograph of the 7-person expert committee up in the air at the podium, Özel said the following to Minister of Justice Yılmaz Tunç:

"Here, a 7-person expert committee was appointed. They worked day and night for 2.5 days. They entered the hotel with their official appointment documents and gendarmerie reports, and they worked at the hotel. Under the supervision of the gendarmerie, they examined the hotel's security records. They noted everything: that the fire started on the 4th floor, how it spread, and the deficiencies. They did not accept the report that was produced. They said, 'Remove the Ministry, add the Bolu Municipality, write that the fire started in the restaurant.' I received that report and shared its relevant pages on social media. When the experts, who stood up for their personal and professional honor, the 7 people, did not sign as they were told, they were then removed from their duties.

The person who is actually carrying out a pirated activity against justice, calling the report of these 7 people pirated, is none other than the Minister of Justice. Since this report is not pirated, he calls the method of obtaining the report pirated. Oh Minister of Justice, this report is not the property of that chief public prosecutor, nor the general manager who called them, nor yours, nor Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's, so that it could be pirated. That report is the property of the nation whose heart is burning; we did not allow it to be stolen, and we will not."

ÖZEL: 'ERSOY IS SAYING, 'DID THE HEALTH MINISTER RESIGN FOR ME TO RESIGN?'

"To the Minister of Interior, who says 'The culprits will be revealed within 10 days,' and to Erdoğan, who says 'The responsible parties will be held accountable' every time he takes the podium, I say this; Mr. Erdoğan, we are all saddened, but you are the head of the executive branch. All of our hearts are burning, but you are the one who appointed these two Ministers. If a hotel burns down to the ground 1 month after receiving an authorization certificate from a company that contradicts each other and that the company they appointed and authorized goes to inspect for fire every 2 years and finds no deficiencies, what more are you waiting for? Let me tell you what you are waiting for. Normally, he should resign, the whole country is waiting for this. But he is not resigning. Do you know why? (Mehmet Nuri Ersoy) I am quoting him; 'Did he make the Minister of Health resign for me to resign? What happened to the Newborn Gang?' he is saying."

'WHEREVER YOU WENT, YOU SLAUGHTERED JUSTICE'

Özel continued his remarks as follows:

"What he did as a good job was to bring a political ban on Canan Kaftancıoğlu due to tweets from 9 years ago, to send Enis Berberoğlu, who was elected by the nation, to prison, to put Can Atalay, the life-saving lawyer of Gezi and the Soma case, in prison, to put Selçuk Kozağaçlı, the lawyer of Gezi and the pro-bono lawyer of Soma, in prison. As a mobile guillotine, wherever we took you, you slaughtered justice. If a judge or prosecutor goes into politics, they do not return to their duty. Because they are now political. He made the prosecutor, whom he placed in a political position with his own mouth, the chief public prosecutor of Istanbul again."

EXPERT INVESTIGATION INTO İMAMOĞLU

Following Ekrem İmamoğlu's disclosure of an expert named S.B. regarding the investigations and lawsuits filed against him at a press conference he organized, another investigation was opened against him. Özgür Özel also spoke about the latest investigation opened.

Özel stated the following:

"We are facing an investigation against Ekrem İmamoğlu once again for exposing the senior person of Akın Gürlek, who was appointed four times in a row for the IMM out of 8,938 experts by chance, who wrote the most ruthless reports for this period, and who cleared and cleaned everything when asked in the previous period, whose name is Satılmış Büyükcanayakın."

'WHAT HE IS TRYING TO SHAKE IS NATURAL GAS SUPPORT'

"This is the kind of day we are going through. Everyone is experiencing anxiety. Our party is the party that turns citizens from subjects into equal citizens. It is the practitioner of the multi-party regime. This party has also remained the second party for 47 years. The AK Party has been governing the nation for 23 years. In the March 31, 2024 elections, it made our party the 1st party and the AK Party the 2nd party after 47 years. We are the only party with municipalities in 7 regions. It is a shame, we own all 9 of the 9 provinces in the Aegean Region.

While this success of the CHP confirms that we are the 1st party, they said, 'come let's change the Constitution, Israel will attack us, I entered Syria, rejoice in the victory, TRT you should also hype this up.' Yesterday, in the average of all polls conducted in Turkey evaluated as a whole, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's party, the CHP, emerged as Turkey's 1st party again. There is a mentality that sets traps, says 'shake it,' and puts a spoke in the wheel of a working business. What he is trying to shake is natural gas support, milk support, our newborn package. The AKP ignored the will of the nation. We are still first in the polls. That is why these attacks are happening."

'12 YEARS LATER, THOSE WHO WENT TO GEZI ARE BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE'

"Opening an investigation for Gezi 12 years ago is a malicious mind. No one is being held accountable who was at Gezi that day but is now leaning towards the Palace. No one is holding Tamer Karadağlı or Yavuz Bingöl accountable. It is not the attitude of those who went to Gezi that day that is being questioned, but their attitude today. May those who surrender to you be worse than you, cowards.

I consider the treatment of Ümit Özdağ as having been done to me. Even if we have diametrically opposed views, we, as the CHP, will stand by Ümit Özdağ, the lieutenants, those who have been inside for 1000 days because of Gezi, the Istanbul Bar Association, and the artists who were called to testify 12 years later with all our being."

İMAMOĞLU BEING CALLED TO TESTIFY

Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu,

"The one called to testify is the Republican People's Party. The one called to testify is Ekrem İmamoğlu, who set out saying 'I am the guardian of Istanbul' and received votes from the Istanbul Alliance. Conservative democrats, Kurdish democrats, all democrats of Istanbul have been called to testify. I say to everyone called to testify on Friday, health to your hearts, go and give that testimony."

'WE WILL DETERMINE OUR PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE'

“We are now launching a new calendar and issuing a call. Today is the first day of a new march. We are on the first day of a new process in which we will determine who our presidential candidate will be. I say to everyone who says 'I want to determine my presidential candidate.' Today is that day. I am addressing the laborers, the retirees, the poor, and especially the youth. Are you ready to determine the president? Register with the party, everyone will play a role in the process of determining the president. Are you ready to change the government? We are marching to power all together.”