Özgür Özel to Erdoğan: Those around you are shouting 'conquest', the people are shouting 'resign'

CHP leader Özel spoke at a rally in Ankara attended by workers and retirees.

Highlights from Özel's statements are as follows:

"Hey Erdoğan, don't be a politician of the halls, don't be afraid of the squares, come here. Erdoğan, who gets applauded in halls, Erdoğan who tells people not to see or feel hunger and poverty, this square is full of those whose rights you have trampled. Come here and be held accountable.

They call you the conqueror of Damascus. If you are going to conquer something, conquer the hearts of your retirees and workers. Don't look at those who keep shouting 'conquest' to you; millions are calling for your resignation.

You cannot run from the election. If there is no livelihood, there is an election.

While minimum wage earners were waiting for a raise, they made a deduction from their pockets."

REGARDING THE MINIMUM WAGE

TÜRK-İŞ withdrew from the table entirely; they did not listen to the workers. I congratulate the three confederations that rebelled against this situation here, and I wholeheartedly support their struggle. If we look at the minimum wage, it melted rapidly by 17 thousand liras in 11 months. By giving a 5 thousand lira raise to a minimum wage that had weakened by 7 thousand liras, this government has, for the first time in history, taken money out of the pockets of the minimum wage earner who was waiting for a raise. We reject this wage."

This is a starvation wage, we reject it. For the first time in history, while the minimum wage earner was waiting for a raise, 2 thousand liras went out of their pocket. The minimum wage is the wage that workers all over the world receive during their 1 year of seniority and from which they move away rapidly. However, in this country, the minimum wage has become the base wage. During the 22-year AKP government, the minimum wage has swallowed more workers like a monster and has turned into the base wage received by 57 percent of society today. In Germany, 6 percent of wage earners receive the minimum wage, while the rest receive salaries far above it.

Mr. Erdoğan, we are on the streets and you are in ivory towers, but I swear to you that we will win, we will win, we will win.

We stated our clear stance when the minimum wage discussions began this year.

We said the minimum wage should be 30, but despite all our warnings, they did not give the raise according to the inflation of the minimum wage, not even according to TÜİK inflation, but according to the inflation calculation they made themselves and failed at. In doing so, they condemned minimum wage earners to misery. Now all retirees are in the same anxiety. We said, give the retiree a minimum wage in time. He said, 'I don't have the money.' But we saw that last year, they gave up 10 times the money they should have given to the retiree as a minimum wage by forgiving the corporate tax that wealthy contractors should have paid.

They gave 10 times the money they needed to give to make the retiree's salary a minimum wage to Mehmet Cengiz and Kalyon İnşaat.

The side of the CHP is the side of the people, while the side of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the table of the wealthy. Furthermore, while preparing the budget this year, the amount of corporate tax to be waived is 701 billion liras. They found this and put it in the budget. But they did not put the money in the budget to give to the retiree. They did not put what was needed to give the workers their rights into the budget, but they found the handouts to be given to the wealthy beforehand and put them in the budget.