We are tired of being ashamed on your behalf

You have discouraged everyone within the Republican People's Party who showed the determination and resolve to engage in politics while remaining committed to Atatürk's principles and revolutions.

You have placed anyone without morals, capacity, or merit into positions of power and authority. In every era, you have bowed to the power of money.

You have crushed anyone with genuine concern, effort, or ideals for the country and the nation; you have allowed those in power to crush them.

In the process that began in 2010 with Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu taking the seat as a result of a direct attack and conspiracy against Turkey and especially the Republican People's Party, the Kemalists who put in the effort within the party were purged one by one. During this process, Özgür Özel, who took the seat of group deputy chairman, became one of the names who remained most silent in the face of lack of principles and destruction, and who supported them.

In 2010, when Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu took over the administration as the party's chairman, we persistently voiced our justified warnings.

The “No matter what, Tayyip Erdoğan must lose” mentality of voters tired of the AKP government and the unconditional trust shown in the Republican People's Party administration brought us to where we are today.

After Özlem Çerçioğlu's second term, her irregularities were widely known within the party, even down to the youth branches.

Burcu Köksal was a female politician who was sidelined by the party administration and quietly worn down by intimidation policies during both the Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Özgür Özel eras because her nationalist streak was strong.

The same situation applied from another perspective to Tuzla Mayor Eren Ali Bingöl. Eren Ali Bingöl, whose relations with Ekrem İmamoğlu were distant, experienced a highly frustrating process with the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality as a politician who came from the youth branches of the Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu era.

Of course, these two situations do not justify either Burcu Köksal or Eren Ali Bingöl in their unprincipled and ignoble choices.

However, these are the concrete facts.

I am not even mentioning Özlem Vural Gürzel, who was placed in the Beykoz Municipality from the Beylikdüzü team's staff and who sold the will of the voters by switching to the AKP as deputy mayor.

There is no one within Republican People's Party politics who does not know about the deal Cemil Tugay made with Mehmet Cengiz and that he was crossed out by Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as a result of this deal. Nor is it unknown that he was rewarded with the Izmir Metropolitan Mayoralty because he was the only mayor who openly supported Özgür Özel and Ekrem İmamoğlu at the change congress where the Turkish nation was deceived with great hopes.

In the recent period, the 36 mayors and two deputy mayors who changed parties by October 7, 2026, will undoubtedly go down in history as the greatest stain of shame that Turkish politics and the Republican People's Party have carried since their founding.

However, when the sociological depth behind this ugly behavior is examined, the truth that emerges is much more painful.

In 2010, I told Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu to his face that he had come to power through a treacherous conspiracy to dismantle and divide the Republican People's Party and to break it away from Atatürk's principles and its founding line.

In this process, the Republican People's Party was first completely stripped of its principles, and then its staff was replaced. During the Özgür Özel and Ekrem İmamoğlu eras, it is painful to say that the party became involved in unfair gains, dirty money, and bribery in local governments more than ever before.

When local or general politicians who saw this situation very clearly inside the party faced the rot, they did not see any harm in changing parties or using their preferences in favor of the government in the face of the government's threats and power. Because the CHP had long since ceased to be a place to be defended and fought for with honesty, and had been stripped of its moral values.

This still does not justify any unprincipled transition and cannot be accepted as an excuse. However, it is important for us to see the motivation of such a high number of local administrators to ease their consciences first toward themselves and then toward their families.

Another fact that is forgotten and not talked about in this picture of political lack of principles is this: What is more shameful than those who switched to the AKP are those who wanted to switch to the AKP but were not accepted, as in the example of Halil Posbıyık in Karadeniz Ereğli.

In the past, in 2009, Halil Posbıyık, who came from the Motherland Party, being made a candidate from the CHP in Karadeniz Ereğli during the Deniz Baykal era is just one of the examples of the calculation of winning the municipality being placed ahead of party principles.

It is a publicly known fact that Posbıyık has used the threat of switching to the AKP as a pressure element before every candidacy since 2009, including the 2014 local elections he lost. It is also known that he actually went to Ankara before the 2014 elections but was not accepted by Tayyip Erdoğan.

The mayors who switched to the AKP are, unfortunately, part of a political picture shaped not only by their own decisions but also by the choices of the administrations that nominated them and did not take warnings into account.

The obligation to be held accountable does not belong only to those who changed parties. The administrations that nominated these names, authorized them, and presented them to the voters as reliable representatives bear the same political responsibility.

Everyone who holds office with the trust of the voter must be held accountable. The historical reputation of the Republican People's Party is not the personal discretion of any administrator. Atatürk's principles and revolutions are the criteria that determine political decisions in the Republican People's Party.

These criteria have been used only as an advertising and marketing element for many years, and unfortunately, they are not kept alive in essence.

As a result of all this, the point reached by the Republican People's Party, the founding party of Turkey, is pathetic.

Yet, as long as this party remains in opposition, its primary duty is to protect national and local values and to audit the ruling parties that bend and twist the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey in line with the interests of imperialist structures.

In this process approaching twenty years, the Republican People's Party has been distanced from its principles; today, the voter is stuck between theft, impudence, and lack of principles.

The founding chairman and administration of the New Party, which ignores the definition of citizenship in Article 66 of the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey in its charter and accepts the European Charter of Local Self-Government as it is, which clearly paves the way for the article on equal citizenship, education in the mother tongue, and a federative structure, are responsible for these lack of principles experienced today and the disappointment suffered by the voter.

As soon as possible, a cadre movement loyal to its founding principles must emerge from within the Republican People's Party and revitalize Turkish politics in a way worthy of its history.

MAYORS ELECTED FROM THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY WHO SWITCHED TO THE AKP

Names elected from the CHP in the March 31, 2024 elections and reported to have joined the AKP by October 7, 2026. Those who served as independents in the interim are also included.

1 Özlem Çerçioğlu Aydın Metropolitan

2 Mustafa İberya Arıkan Aydın — Söke

3 Malik Ercan Aydın — Yenipazar

4 Osman Yıldırımkaya Aydın — Sultanhisar

5 Umut Yılmaz Gaziantep — Şehitkamil

6 Mustafa Güzel Gaziantep — Karkamış

7 Burcu Köksal Afyonkarahisar

8 Veysel Topçu Afyonkarahisar — Dinar

9 Levent Koç Ankara — Haymana

10 Mesut Özarslan Ankara — Keçiören

11 Yakup Odabaşı Ankara — Gölbaşı

12 Selim Çırpanoğlu Ankara — Kahramankazan

13 Eren Ali Bingöl Istanbul — Tuzla

14 Orhan Çerkez Istanbul — Çekmeköy

15 İsa Yıldırım Antalya — Aksu

16 Kadir Kumbul Antalya — Serik

17 Şeref Güleser Kayseri — Felahiye

18 Mustafa Dursun Kayseri — Akkışla

19 Hasan Ustaoğlu Konya — Seydişehir

20 Hamit Tutuş Batman — Hasankeyf

21 Yasemin Fazlaca Yalova — Altınova

22 Gökhan Budak Ardahan — Göle

23 Hasan Turgut Şırnak — İdil — Karalar

24 Şenol Öncül Çorum — Ortaköy — Aşdağul

25 Muammer Çelikbaş Niğde — Çiftlik — Bozköy

26 Mehmet Özcan Edirne — Keşan

27 Tuncer Başoğlu Tekirdağ — Hayrabolu

28 Engin Uysal Kütahya — Domaniç

29 Saim Zileli Çanakkale — Eceabat

30 Saniye Bora Fıçı Izmir — Foça

31 Vahap Akay Tekirdağ — Çerkezköy

32 Onur Emrah Yıldız İzmir — Çiğli

33 Halil Öztürk Antalya — Elmalı

34 Görbil Özcan Erzurum — Şenkaya

35 Aydın Dinçer Balıkesir — Marmara

36 Cemil Tugay İzmir Metropolitan

DEPUTY MAYORS WHO SWITCHED TO THE AKP

1 Özlem Vural Gürzel Istanbul — Beykoz

2 Sacit Terzi İstanbul — Şile