Breaking News: Özgür Özel officially announces primary election date! How will the calendar work?

Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Özgür Özel made statements regarding the agenda at his party's group meeting.

We are holding our party's group meeting https://t.co/DwPZMSwUsS

— Özgür Özel (@eczozgurozel) February 11, 2025

Özel announced the primary election calendar at the meeting.

Highlights from Özel's speech are as follows:

"Petty Officer Esma Çevik was martyred in 2019 while trying to defuse an improvised explosive device. Her father, Hüseyin Akgül, returned to his 'father's house' (the party) after seeing the relationship we established with martyrs and veterans, despite coming from a different political tradition.

COMMEMORATED DENİZ BAYKAL FROM THE PODIUM

This morning, we commemorated our 6th Chairman, Mr. Deniz Baykal, at the State Cemetery. I had said, 'The AKP will lose the election, but we cannot win; the party's 2004 vote was 6 percent.' I went to his graveside as a chairman who won Manisa, which he entrusted to me with 6 percent, with 60 percent. I entered active politics 15 years ago as a mayoral candidate in Manisa with a phone call from Deniz Baykal. Deniz Bey said to me on the phone, 'Maybe the election won't be won, but politics will win you.' I went to his graveside as a chairman who won Manisa, which he entrusted to me with 6 percent, with 60 percent.

GET WELL SOON MESSAGE TO BAHÇELİ

We learned that Mr. Bahçeli underwent heart valve surgery. As the Republican People's Party, I convey our get-well wishes. We have not made criticisms in cases of illness and death. I have not had a negative approach regarding him during this process, and I will not. May God grant him healing, and may he return to his duty.

KARTALKAYA TRAGEDY

I will mention the Kartalkaya tragedy again, unfortunately. It has been three weeks, exactly 21 days. 78 lives were lost there. When I went on the first day, the Minister of Interior was promising that all those responsible would be identified within a week, at most 10 days, that no one could escape responsibility, and that they could not wash away the responsibility upon them. 21 days have passed, and he has not opened his mouth on this matter. Erdoğan waited to pin a badge on Kürşad Zorlu to announce the number of those who died, and now he is waiting for February 23, the AK Party congress, to dismiss the minister. At that congress, he will replace the minister, one of 8-10 ministers. He will both get rid of that burden without showing the minister's responsibility and will not take the responsibility onto his party.

LOSS OF LIFE FROM COUNTERFEIT ALCOHOL

Since the fire in Bolu Kartalkaya, 71 people in Istanbul and 39 people in Ankara have lost their lives due to bootleg alcohol. We previously proposed the establishment of a commission regarding this issue. There is no explanation for not wanting this issue to be investigated.

This tax is an ideological tax. This tax is a 'lifestyle preference tax'. This tax is a tax imposed by risking the death of those who drink alcohol. Because they approach the issue ideologically, they collect taxes with ambition and hatred. They had said they would not interfere with anyone's lifestyle. They have increased it 55-fold since 2006.

He went to the earthquake zone 1 day after me in his warm car. He had people applaud those he appointed. He gave keys to people. You didn't come to the bazaar, you didn't come to the greengrocer; if you have the courage, come to the container cities, let's tour them with you. Let's draw lots randomly. If you don't like the street, stay in the hall.

We are in such a state that the Presidency of Religious Affairs said that fitra (charity) can be given to retirees and minimum wage earners during Ramadan. That is, it said that 6 out of 10 employees are in need of fitra. Also, also, because 6 out of 10 employees work for minimum wage. When you look at those who receive a pension at or below the minimum wage, not just the lowest pension, it said that nearly 80 percent of them are in need of fitra.

We are in a country where 60 percent of its employees and 80-85 percent of its retirees are in need of fitra. And when a raise was given to these people, it was given at the rate of inflation. He was boasting about it, saying, 'We did not let them be crushed.'

We were saying, 'TUIK's inflation is not correct. If you don't give a welfare share, it will still melt.' But that's how he was giving it. This year, he gave it according to the expected inflation, and first, they stole 4 percent more from the nation by keeping the December inflation at 1 percent.

ADDRESSED THE LABORERS: CHP IS BEHIND YOU

He corrected it this month, made it 24 percent. Then you have to give this 3 percent difference of the estimated inflation immediately, at the very least, and make an inflation adjustment in March to these salaries. Those who finished the year without increasing the minimum wage by 1 TL last year intend to do the same thing this year, but I see that a great struggle, a great resistance, and a great objection are coming. We say this to the laborers: You will get your rights, you will find the Republican People's Party by your side, behind you.

And I must clearly state that in our government, we want the lowest pension to reach at least the level of a minimum wage, and we also embrace the figure targeted by unions where the minimum wage, let alone being at the hunger threshold, can exceed the poverty threshold for two minimum wage earners, and this corresponds to roughly 30,000 to 32,000 TL that we mentioned this year. To cover up the lack, poverty, and injustice experienced in the country, he was saying 2 days before the developments in Syria, which happened shortly ago, 'We are uncomfortable with this delegation, this thing coming out of Idlib.'

Two days later, the regime changed. There were poses of 'I set the equation in Syria, I made the game.' He frothed, the foam faded. Those who believed and trusted these were bewildered. In those days, they were inflating words like, 'He has a very strong army. Erdoğan will be the gendarme of Syria,' as if they were praise, and reminding that 'He had written a letter saying don't be a fool last time,' they were inflating words like, 'Be smart. Smart man Erdoğan. I love him, he has a strong army, Syria will be his.' Whose? Trump's.

Who are they? AK Party journalists, AK Party pens, AK Party administrators, those who talk big, produce wisdom and ideas in the AK Party. What does Trump say? What do the AK Party members say? Those who inflate Syria, those who rejoice at Trump?

'Palestine is a beautiful place. It's already razed to the ground. I will distribute them to other Arab countries. I will build there. It will be tourism, it will be the apple of the world's eye,' he says. To whom? To Palestine. Where? For the Palestinian cause, for the Palestinian cause, there were those who believed, trusted, and voted for them.

"ERDOĞAN EMBARRASSED ME"

'They will protect Palestine.' they said. Now they are all looking into his eyes like this. And we said, 'Trump said this right now. What will Erdoğan say? Let's see what kind of reaction he will give.' I found him in front of me on television.

German President Mr. Steinmeier, after his meeting with Erdoğan, said at the press conference they held together, 'It is unacceptable. It is against international law. This will affect the relations that Germany and America, I and Trump will establish.

Let him think well. This decision will spoil our relations. This is a crime against humanity.' By God, ours is standing here, he is afraid to even nod his head to those expressions. 'If you couldn't nod to the German, nod to the translation.' He hears the translation, he looks like this.

He didn't say a word for 5 days. I said: 'Why aren't you talking? Come out and talk.' He spoke yesterday, he embarrassed me.

His explanation is this: 'There is no side worth talking about.' Look, this speech is this. 'There is no side worth talking about.' Then he attacked Netanyahu with all his might on this issue.

"YOU DON'T HAVE THE COURAGE TO SAY A WORD TO TRUMP"

Well? Then Netanyahu's words are worth talking about, but if Trump's are worthless, how does this work? The main issue is this: You have the courage to say a word to Netanyahu, but you don't have the courage to say a word to Trump.

Our Istanbul Provincial Presidency put a touchstone to their hypocrisy, to their hypocrisy. It dipped litmus paper into their hypocrisy. It is not even a political party that requests permission for the Palestine Solidarity March on January 1, which is an official holiday every year, and the Support for Gaza, Support for Palestine Rally, the top of the Galata Bridge.

Our Istanbul Provincial Presidency also requested rally permission for the same place with a petition in accordance with the procedure. It received the answer, 'A rally cannot be held here. A march cannot be held here. This is not one of those areas determined by the governor's office.' When the AK Party does it, when Erdoğan's son writes it, everything is free; when the CHP does it, it is forbidden. The issue itself, you dip the litmus paper, the blue paper turns red, right, they will also blush, that face doesn't exist either, my friend.

"WE ARE WHERE BÜLENT ECEVİT STANDS"

Litmus paper is more moral. Where are we? We are where Bülent Ecevit stands. We are where Bülent Ecevit, the friend of Yasser Arafat, stands. Where are we? We are where Deniz Gezmiş and his friends stand. We, we this type of applause, this Parliament, group meetings, such applause are historical applause. It shows how you own the issue. I remember this applause from 2004 too.

"WELL DONE TO THE CO-CHAIR OF THE BOP"

Erdoğan had come out and said: 'I am the co-chair of the Greater Middle East Project,' he had said. He had received so much applause from his own group back then. What a project it is, my friend, what a project?

From that day to this, there hasn't been a day when Muslim blood hasn't flowed in the co-chair's project, nor a day when Israeli oppression has stopped. Well done to Erdoğan, well done to the co-chair of the BOP. There is a political undersecretary appointed to Istanbul, a mobile guillotine.

This mobile guillotine continued his legal massacres with journalists over the weekend, over the weekend. They detained dear Uğur Koç, Berkant Gültekin, and Yaşar Gökdemir from BirGün Newspaper, but they are now trying their own records.

The oppression from what this mobile guillotine did in Istanbul and with his instructions spread to the journalists in Ankara. Their crime is this: Sabah newspaper went to visit Akın Gürlek and shared the photo himself during this visit, saying:

'We visited our prosecutor who is fighting against terrorism.' BirGün newspaper also took that photo, that news, and if you say, 'Pro-government Sabah,' 'Pro-government,' 'Not on the side of Erdoğan, not on the side of the AK Party,' let them come out and say it. 'Pro-government Sabah' reported the visit by putting the words I said to Akın Gürlek in quotation marks, journalism, I am not saying it, he is saying it, meaning by putting it in quotation marks. They were about to arrest the journalists, not the Sabah newspaper, but them, on the charge of 'targeting the prosecutor fighting against terrorism,' they detained them, they took various measures, they will continue to prosecute.

And I counted last week what the mobile guillotine has done since October 9. This week I will only remind you what he did to journalists. He detained Furkan Karabay on November 9, İsmail Saymaz and Fatih Altaylı on November 22, Özlem Gürses and Seyhan Avşar on December 20, and Barış Pehlivan, Seyhan Asker, and Kürşat Oğuz on January 28.

OPERATION ON CHP MUNICIPALITIES

Suat Toktaş has been in prison for exactly 14 days. This morning, too, this morning, we woke up to the creaks of the mobile guillotine. According to what we learned from the newspapers in Istanbul, from Twitter, from the fast press statement, from the declaration, 2 of our deputy mayors and 7 of our council members were detained in a new dawn operation.

From the first hours of the night, of the morning, from the moment the operations started, our friends in Istanbul have been following the process. He gives a clean record when becoming a candidate, he has not committed any crime for 10 months, he wants to be a candidate from us, he is a municipal council member.

'Go get a clean record from the state,' we say. It is the Ministry of Justice, Turkey's justice system, that puts up bail when we make our municipal council member a candidate. He hasn't committed anything so far, he hasn't received any punishment, he doesn't have a finalized conviction. 'Clean,' it says. 'He has no legally proven crime,' it says. We put him on our list, our nation appreciated it, he came.

They are rounding up these friends at the crack of dawn. No, sir, city consensus, ment consensus. What does city consensus mean? It means Istanbul Alliance. We said: We cannot win alone against an authoritarian. Come, Turkey's social democrats, conservative democrats, nationalist democrats, Kurdish democrats, let's be together. There are former AK Party members on our lists.

"YOU CAN BURN AS MUCH AS YOUR GUILT"

The one being punished here is defying the will of Istanbul. 'If you all democrats unite and defeat an autocrat like me, I will make those you elect suffer,' he says. You can burn as much as your guilt, as much as your guilt, as much as your guilt.

On the other hand, the Chairman of a political party is under arrest, Mr. Ümit Özdağ. I had spoken with him when the first operation happened.

I visited his office, his deputy chairman. Almost every day, one of our deputy friends, two of our deputy friends, our Istanbul Provincial Legal Commission, our administrators visit him. We never, ever accept that the chairman of a political party is kept inside for such political reasons. I also see it as a duty to share here a great illegality that our lawyer friends noticed and revealed during the communication we established with him. First of all, he was detained by the collar while eating in Ankara.

However, what will the chairman of a political party do if he doesn't go when called, doesn't give a statement, or doesn't send his lawyer? What will he do if he doesn't come when called? But he was detained by the collar, discrediting him.

He was brought to Istanbul, brought before a prosecutor, a judge, and the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office is conducting an investigation regarding a crime allegedly committed in Antalya. It has no authority to execute. The alleged crime is not terrorism, but a terrorism prosecutor conducted the investigation. There is no side that can be accepted.

"SELF-CRITICISM HAPPENS AT THE CONGRESS"

When the government loses the support of the people, it cannot come to the agenda by doing deeds, doing good things, raising salaries, reducing poverty, so it proceeds with fear and various aggressions and evils.

One of these is the conspiracy it is trying to set up against the Republican People's Party.

The CHP has done a job that is the pride of Turkey. At a time when the voter was most angry at it, when they said, 'How did you lose this election, my friend?' when all of our faces were down, when the voter had emotionally broken away from this party, the Republican People's Party has made self-criticism.

Self-criticism in politics happens with a congress. This has happened in front of the eyes of all of Turkey, starting from the neighborhood, by establishing ballot boxes in the neighborhood, province, district, province, and its congress, leaving democracy aside. Then it came to its congress.

In its congress, as a party that can elect its chairman with a multi-candidate race among the parties in the Parliament, that can have a rival to its chairman. It was tried in the MHP, the IYI Party had to emerge from within it. They threw them all out. It doesn't cross anyone's mind in the AK Party.

The Republican People's Party came and for the first time in the history of the Republic, a change of chairman took place through democratic means. This is a situation that we all and Turkey are proud of, and that we can defend abroad that there is really democracy in one of the political parties in this Turkey.

What is the situation in the AK Party? If a second rival candidate emerges for the district chairman in a district of Manisa, they call him and the provincial chairman reduces the candidate to one, with the instruction of his 'reis' (chief). If he cannot manage that, they call him to Ankara, the one here does it. If it is at the level of the provincial chairman, sometimes he calls him himself. They notify the provincial chairman to be elected by their congresses at least 15 days in advance.

"THE CONGRESS IS AS CLEAN AS OUR MOTHER'S MILK"

It becomes news in the local press, 'He is becoming the provincial chairman.' Those congresses are not suspicious, is this congress, which we won as clean as our mother's milk, suspicious? Is that so?

Let me tell you the truth of the matter, let me tell you the truth of the matter. Of course, some lunatic cursed at our Bursa Provincial Chairman, insulted him, slandered him, and he complained about him. The crime, the file is the file where the slanderer is being tried, his statement is there. They pulled the file from Bursa to Ankara.

They kept it in Ankara for 1 year. The prosecutor's statement, if not, let him come out and say it. The file has been open for a year, Bursa December 2023, it came in January 2024. It has been standing for a year. 'We did it this way because it was talked about in recent days.'

It has nothing to do with it, it has nothing to do with it. Let me tell you the truth of the matter. The AK Party, or rather the palace, has a media plan.

In the media plan, in the media plan, the crisis, the fight, the CHP that fell out with each other and fell apart in the triple meeting, the triple summit that Özgür Özel, Ekrem İmamoğlu, and Mansur Yavaş attended, which was planned last night, was the CHP. That was the media plan, but this fell to the media.

When this photo fell onto Turkey's agenda, when everyone saw it and raised the hopes, the hopes in Çağlayan, again and more strongly, it turned to the media plan, to the crisis in the CHP, to the lie of the congress that it considers suspicious in the CHP.

Tayyip Bey has been saying this for 1 year, 3 times, 4 times. He is calling me there into a septic area, into a septic area he has entered. He will also dirty me with his own words, with his bad words. Would I enter that pit? Would I enter that pit? This government has plunged Turkey into a multiple crisis from justice to the economy, it cannot get it out. Those who took authority from the nation have forgotten the nation.

Their only concern is to be able to sit in their seats a little longer. And for this, they are running away from the ballot box where the nation's troubles will be solved. They cannot come to the container city where the nation's troubles are talked about, they cannot go to the bazaar where the nation sees the fire, they cannot ask after the nation. And they are constantly looking to feel that the elections will be in the future, that no one should expect an election until that day, that almost wanting an election is a terrorist crime, looking at videos from 12 years ago,

'Don't go to the rally, don't go out to the street,' they are looking to say. But last year, 1 year ago from now, the firm that measured the early election demand at 28% measured it at 70% this month. There is no one who measures it below 65, 63, there are many who measure it at 75%. And there is an early election demand. Our demand is to bring the ballot box that will soothe the pain of the nation that is in a state of not being able to wait for the YSK's calendar.

Every reaction that any conventional politics can show has been shown against someone who attacks his potential rivals, who tries to sideline his potential rival, who attacks Republican People's Party municipalities and municipal council members for this. Every word that needs to be said, every rally that needs to be held, every action, everything has been done.

However, the nation now wants the ballot box, those who tell their own troubles, who groan with their costs, or who are worried about their unemployed child's job problem or that child's escape abroad, or the young people who feel this trouble inside, regarding the minimum wage, pension, tea price, hazelnut price, cotton price, citrus price.

"THE NATION'S ELECTION CALENDAR HAS BEGUN"

The YSK does not start election calendars. The nation starts it, the nation's election calendar has begun, friends. Of course, we want an early election. If we want an early election, we have duties. How will we protect the ballot boxes? The organization is appointing 180,000 ballot box officials. In fact, the army of 180,000 people who will protect the ballot boxes in the early election to be held in a few months will practice in the morning, will wake up at 6.00, at 5.30. He will go to that school. He will scan the QR code in the hand of the school official waiting in front of him.

We had said that we would ask the question to all members and that we would crown the answer they would give. We had said that we would start a democracy feast with countless meetings held in 40 days, that we would bring out the candidate who would win as we did in the local election, and that everyone who has become a member of our party would choose as president. We have made all our preparations to take decisive steps.

PRIMARY ELECTION DATE IN CHP IS CLEAR

And finally, yesterday, in our Party Assembly, and then in our Central Executive Board, we have made the final decision regarding the primary election process. According to the determined election calendar, February 11, 2025, today, is the 1st day of the calendar with the taking and announcement of the decision.

Our Deputy Chairman responsible for Election and Legal Affairs will share all the details of the calendar with the public with a special press conference. However, I would like to draw attention to two critical dates. The first of these is until 17.00 on Friday, February 28, I invite all the youth of Turkey, especially all the youth who are online registering for the party, and all the democrats of Turkey, to come to the 'father's house,' to register, and to vote in the election to be held, to take part in determining the candidate of the Great Turkey Alliance, the Republican People's Party, who will be the selector, the voter of the primary election where the next President who will govern Turkey will be determined. We will determine our presidential candidate with the primary election to be held on March 23. Best of luck."

News Source: 12punto