Alliance message from Özgür Özel regarding local elections! “Not forming an alliance…”

CHP chairmanship candidate andTBMM Group Chair Özgür Özel met with a group of journalists to answer questions regarding the party congress processes and the current agenda.According to the report on T24; Noting that they aim to elect the party leader via the delegate system for the last time at the congress to be held in early November, Özel said: “From now on, we will elect both the party leader and the provincial and district chairs with the participation of all members. However, we are aware of the constraints imposed by the Law on Political Parties. We know that once there is an intention to act, the solution is clear. If we were organizing this congress, we would have held a primary with all members on November 5 and held the congress on November 12. We would have found it appropriate to turn the congress into a celebration where we announce the candidate determined by our organization to the public authority. The Law on Political Parties is not an obstacle to holding a primary with all members and narrowing it down to a single official candidate. From now on, until the Law on Political Parties is changed, we will elect the party leader this way. Not only for the party leader election, but we will also determine our presidential candidate after public opinion research that we will share with our members.”

“THE AKP GOVERNMENT EVENTUALLY OWNED THE PROCESS STARTED BY FETÖ”

Evaluating the decision of the

Court of Cassationto uphold the convictions of Osman Kavala, Can Atalay, Mine Özerden, Tayfun Kahraman, and Çiğdem Mater,Özel said the following:

“The reversal of the decision regarding Hakan Altunay and Mücella Yapıcı is certainly gratifying. However, we see it as a major deficiency and contradiction that the decision was only reversed for Mücella Yapıcı and Hakan Altunay, while it should have been reversed in its entirety. We see that the Gezi decision was approved and upheld with an instruction coming from across the ocean again. This time, they gave the instruction from across the ocean, but the person giving it was Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. We see Gezi as our honor; it was the common rebellion and common uprising of this country's youth and those who object to the interference in this country's way of life. And as determined by the courts later on, Gezi was terrorized by the FETÖ terrorist organization at that time. The AKP government eventually owned the process started by FETÖ. We find it extremely significant that those who distanced themselves from all the conspiracy cases created by FETÖ and apologized for them are now embracing the Gezi case in this way—a case that FETÖ targeted and later wrote the indictment for. We truly feel great distress and shame to be living through this process.”

CALL TO KURTULMUŞ: “LEAVE THE READING OF THE DECISION REGARDING ATALAY UNTIL THE END OF THE TERM”

Making evaluations regardingCan Atalay, who was elected as a deputy from theWorkers' Party of Turkey (TİP) and whose prison sentence in theGezi Case was upheld, Özel called onTBMM Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş

not to have the decision regarding Atalay read in the TBMM General Assembly and to leave it until the end of the term. Özel said:

“The issue regarding Can Atalay is another disaster within this absurdity. Can Atalay was elected to the Human Rights Commission with the consensus of political parties and the votes of AKP and MHP members. Perhaps he will be assigned to the Prison Inspection Commission. The feature of this commission is that you go to the prison unannounced, you say ‘open the door,’ and you look inside; there is no such thing as ‘let’s ask’ or anything like that. So, while they are giving him the authority to open all the doors in prisons, a door has been closed on Atalay. Now, here, I think we have reached the most important turning point in Numan Kurtulmuş's political life. We warned that the AK Party should take some of its commitments and include them in their own speeches, and we said that a clearer stance should be taken regarding Can Atalay.”