Zafer Party Spokesperson Karamahmutoğlu: How much longer can Turkey endure this high-tension politics?

Azmi Karamahmutoğlu stated the following:

Unfortunately, a new date has been added to the series of coups recorded in our history as interventions in democracy, such as May 27, 1960, March 12, 1971, and September 12, 1980. The record added this time to the series of interventions against our country's democracy and the will of the people was not a uniformed intervention, but was recorded as a civilian government coup.

The common consensus, now in its fifth day, is that March 19 has taken its place in the memory of the Turkish people as a civilian government coup. Because what has been experienced is the seizure of the people's will that determines local administrations. The people's will that determines local administrations has been seized.

Those who got off the democracy tram! Yes, we heard you. You addressed us, we heard you on March 19.

We heard you say, "We have shelved the Constitution." We heard you say, "The rule of law no longer exists."

The intervention in the voter's will, dear friends, cannot be thought of as limited to local administrations just by looking at the example of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (İBB) or district municipalities. This intervention is not limited to local administrations.

In this form, it is an intervention aimed at the upcoming first Presidential elections through political engineering. It is an intervention aimed at the first general elections. The March 19 intervention we are experiencing is not just the disqualification of a potential candidate, but a total intimidation, suppression, and dispersal movement against the entire opposition. What is being done is an act of discrediting and intimidation aimed at all opposition voters one by one to break the solidarity of different opposition parties against the government.

The first intervention in the natural flow of politics leading up to March 19 began two months ago, on January 20, with the imprisonment of Zafer Party Chairman Mr. Ümit Özdağ in Silivri Prison through judicial means. With this imprisonment and the removal of Mr. Özdağ from politics, this intervention, the March 19 intervention, began. Our Chairman, who has been deprived of his freedom for over two months on baseless allegations and, moreover, without an indictment, was targeted because he created opposition to the policies that the power holders are pursuing against Turkey, that is, because he is a political rival.

We know and hear that those in power, who realize they cannot keep Ümit Özdağ in prison for a long time with empty, baseless allegations, may embark on new conspiracies. These power holders may be preparing new conspiracies. We would like to say that we will meet those who are chasing new conspiracies against our Chairman Ümit Özdağ in a dead-end street. The path of these conspirators is a dead-end street, and it will be the Zafer Party that will corner them there, corner them in that dead-end street. We warn those who are chasing this conspiracy plot.

Stop conspiring against Ümit Özdağ and the Zafer Party. Whatever you have prepared so far, put it aside and leave it idle. Everything you have prepared until now... Because you will not be able to remove Ümit Özdağ, whom you cannot defeat politically or intellectually, from politics with conspiracies. You cannot. The People's Alliance (Cumhur İttifakı) is resorting to the lawlessness of blocking and disqualifying its political rivals, whom it cannot defeat politically, through judicial means. And we know they will not stop. This disregard for rules and law will apparently extend to other potential political rivals, that is, other potential candidate names.

The most important aspect of the March 19 civilian government coup that hurts the citizens, as much as the magnitude of the wound it has opened in Turkish democracy and the damage it has caused to Turkish politics, is the damage it has caused to the country's economy. As the common view of the economic world, the accident report of the first 5 days regarding the March 19 intervention is as follows:

When the Dollar/TL exchange rate rose from 37 to 42 TL, the week was closed at 38 TL with the intervention of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey in the market. However, the loss in the Central Bank's foreign exchange reserves was around 25 billion dollars.

This corresponded to 25 percent of the total reserves of the Central Bank, which was 97 billion dollars a week ago. In other words, one-fourth of the Central Bank's reserves melted away during that state of emergency (OHAL) period, the limited state of emergency period. In order to curb the increase in foreign exchange, contrary to the interest rate cuts initiated in 2004, the overnight borrowing interest rate was increased by 200 basis points to 46%.

The results this process has created for the stock market have reached worrying dimensions. The weekly loss in the banking index exceeded 26%, which was one of the largest losses experienced since the 2001 crisis. The total value of the companies in the stock market melted by 2 trillion Turkish liras, corresponding to 17 percent of the central government's budget. The total value of the companies in the stock market melted by 2 trillion Turkish liras.

With the economic damage caused by the March 19 civilian government coup, the poverty that the people are already experiencing is now turning into misery. Dragging the people, 40 million of whom live below the hunger line, into economic misery is a political suicide that the AKP government has risked for its continuation. But unfortunately, the AKP government is prepared to risk all kinds of destruction to stay in power at the cost of dragging the people into misery.

How much longer can Turkey endure this economic misery and this high-tension politics?

And how much longer can the AKP government continue with this? We do not see it as possible for it to complete its next three years. The AKP government does not seem capable of completing its three-year term of power with this high tension it has dragged the country into.

In the midst of all this turmoil, dear friends, the negotiations on the bargaining table established with the bloody PKK terrorist organization, which were initiated with Devlet Bahçeli's announcement on October 22, and the give-and-take continue. They continue by avoiding the eyes of the public and the evaluation of the media.

On the other hand, the dust cloud raised by what we are experiencing masks and shadows the scene there. The March 19 civilian government coup wanted to take away the citizens' constitutional right to organize demonstrations and marches by imposing bans and restrictions, almost like a regional martial law application or a state of emergency in Istanbul.

The bans imposed on March 19 and the live broadcast bans imposed on the media are exactly this. On the other hand, it was the AKP government that drove the people to the streets. Citizens have embarked on defending their rights arising from citizenship. Despite the Governor's demonstration ban, the people protected democracy and their freedoms while resisting the police and oppression.

What is strange is that in this friction, on the same day in the same city, a privileged legal permit was given to the demonstration of crowds carrying rags symbolizing the PKK terrorist organization and posters of the terrorist ringleader. All areas from the Malazgirt district of Muş to the Yenikapı Square in Istanbul were opened to the PKK. While these areas are being opened to the PKK, squares are being narrowed and roads are being closed to our youth, who are the children of the Atatürk Republic.

Dear friends, while disagreements are seen from time to time at the PKK bargaining table, we are witnessing the proposals brought by Mr. Bahçeli, who made the announcement, so that the matter does not turn into a crisis or a deadlock. I would like to bring one of these, the answer given by the DEM Party Co-Chair, to your attention along with the proposal.

Pointing to May 4, the date when the Dersim Rebellion was suppressed, Mr. Bahçeli proposed that the PKK hold a congress in the Malazgirt district of Muş. DEM Party Co-Chair Bakırhan drew attention to the symbolic and historical meaning of this, saying, "It carries a symbolic and historical meaning," in response to Mr. Bahçeli's proposal. The date of the Tunceli Tenkil Operation, which was the decision taken by the CHP government to suppress the Dersim Rebellion, is May 4, 1937.

While Mr. Bahçeli was saying, "Come to the PKK, hold your congress. Hold it in the Malazgirt district of Muş and hold it on May 4," the public was trying to make sense of this statement by Bahçeli. The date of May 4 is the date when the decision was made to suppress the Dersim Rebellion. May 4 is the date of the decision taken by the government in the Parliament for the Tunceli Tenkil Operation. The thought behind Devlet Bahçeli choosing May 4 as the date for inviting the PKK to Malazgirt is in need of explanation.

Devlet Bahçeli proposed Malazgirt as the address for the PKK to hold its congress where it would achieve political gains. That Malazgirt is the gate of Anatolia, where the Great Seljuk Sultan Alparslan Gazi brought Byzantium to its knees to make Anatolia a homeland. The thought behind wanting to bring the PKK terrorist organization, the puppet of imperialism, to Malazgirt is in need of explanation by Devlet Bahçeli. These comparisons, these contrasts, these codings are in need of explanation.

We ask the People's Alliance, which is bargaining with the bloody separatist terrorist organization PKK: Is the ethnic separatist PKK terrorist organization, the puppet of imperialism, an organization or a party established under the Republic of Turkey's Law on Political Parties, so that it holding a congress to dissolve, terminate, or abolish itself is a necessity or an obligation for us? Is there such a legal requirement? Is the bloody terrorist organization in front of you a party established under the Law on Political Parties, so that you, the People's Alliance government, are worried about them putting forward an excuse like, "We cannot dissolve ourselves without holding a congress"?

However, just as 20 scoundrels came together in the Fisköy village of the Lice district of Diyarbakır in 1978 and decided to establish a murder network, now the terrorist barons at the head of that network come together and decide, "We have decided to stop committing murders," and they dissolve and terminate themselves, and that's it. What congress to hold for this, what Malazgirt, which May 4, Mr. Bahçeli?

As the Zafer Party, what we have insistently said from the very beginning, since October 22, is that the mutual bargaining table established with the PKK terrorist organization is exactly this. The PKK is being approached as if it were a party established under the Law on Political Parties by the People's Alliance government.

Since January 21, when Chairman Ümit Özdağ was arrested, the struggle for democracy and law that the Zafer Party has been waging for exactly two months has gained even more meaning and become mass-based and adopted by society with the March 19 civilian coup. Fortunately, our struggle for law and freedom, which has been rising from the Silivri dungeons and the squares for two months, has turned into a struggle for society's quest for freedom with the disregard of the people's will once again on March 19.

Then, down with tyranny, long live freedom!