Özgür Özel's reaction to the government over 'religious community dorms': 'TOKİ, which does everything...'

CHP Chairman Özgür Özel attended the opening of the Mustafa Necati Girls' Dormitory in Kartal, Istanbul.

Kartal Mayor Gökhan Yüksel also attended the opening.

Highlights from Özel's statements are as follows:

"ALL POLLS SHOW THIS"

"When you look at what the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has done for Kartal, it would take too long to read, but it provides scholarships to 6,044 students in Kartal. Kartal is actually very satisfied with the vote it gave to Mayor Ekrem and Mayor Gökhan in the last election. All polls show this. Looking at such high satisfaction, providing scholarships to 6,044 students means this: if the people of Istanbul had not made this choice last time, these 6,000 students would have had no one to look after them. 1,529 students receive regular stationery support. They have laid 185,000 tons of asphalt in Kartal alone. We have carried out 72,366 square meters of pedestrianization work. We provide regular cash support to 10,098 students in 6,370 households in Kartal. We have provided health services to 55,000 people. We have planted 3,935 trees and 3.5 million flowers and seedlings. We have distributed 32,873 food and hygiene parcels. We have provided veterinary services to 34,980 stray animals and taken them into shelters. We have given Istanbulkart to 8,224 households for mothers.

"WE WILL CONTINUE SUCH WORK"

In Kartal, we are experiencing the hope, excitement, and pride of a municipal understanding that centers on young people, providing support to students with 'you study' and young university student campaigns, and spreading this to all CHP municipalities in Turkey after March 31. In 2022, only 22 percent of university students in Turkey could be provided with dormitory facilities. This rate is slightly above 10 percent in Istanbul. Making such an investment and opening such a girls' dormitory is a very warm message sent to the hearts of mothers and fathers of students coming here from the other 80 provinces of Turkey, across different geographies of the country. This hand of friendship extended to them from Kartal will also make a very important contribution to Turkey's social peace. We will continue such work.

CRITICISM OF TOKİ

To date, our municipalities in Turkey have opened exactly 64 dormitories. This is a very important step because, when you look at it, building dormitories is not actually the job of municipalities. If you are opening a university, you must solve the housing problem as the central government, but if TOKİ, which does everything, TOKİ, which builds luxury residences, TOKİ, which builds mass housing, TOKİ, which builds schools and mosques, does not build a single dormitory, there is another issue here that needs to be seen. If the Kartal Municipality were not ours, if the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality were not ours, if our other municipalities in Turkey were not there, those 64 dormitories would not be built. But someone is building dormitories. Religious communities and sects are building dormitories. They house poor students there, trying to shape their worldviews and catch them from another place during this process where they are trying to hold onto life. In the fact that TOKİ, which does everything, does not build a single dormitory, we all see who this government is opening space for and for what purpose.

CALL TO THE GOVERNMENT

I would like to thank all our local administrators who claim these spaces as they should, in the person of Mayor Gökhan, the president and administrators of the Şah Kulu Association and the Şah Kulu Foundation who made this cooperation agreement in this dormitory, and everyone who contributed here. I herald from here that we will have many more social democratic mayors after March 31, that we will reach very high numbers by increasing our number of municipalities in Istanbul, which is 14, to 28 as our mayor sets a target by saying '14 plus 14', that as young mayors multiply, the path for more young people will be cleared, that the CHP will walk with more determined steps with more women and young people from now on in the centenary of the young Republic, that we will succeed first in the local elections and then pay our debt of gratitude to both the last chairman and the first chairman of the CHP by making their party the government in the second century of the Republic."