Breaking News: Özgür Özel's 'we are on the threshold of a new era' statement! 'Let them appoint a trustee to the CHP if they want...'

Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Özgür Özel made important assessments at the opening of his party's founding week events.

"WE ARE ON THE THRESHOLD OF A NEW ERA"

Touching upon the steps the CHP will take in the coming period, Özel stated the following:

"History is loading the same burden onto the back of the CHP today, and the nation is looking into the eyes of the CHP. We will feel to our very bones, in every sentence we construct and every step we take, that we are on the eve of the end of one era and the beginning of a new one. From now on, you will see round tables everywhere in this 14-story building, including the exhibition area and almost the entire executive floor."

Stating that the party program was prepared with the joint contributions of the delegates, Özel said, "If we have created a charter that was applauded standing with almost unanimous consent, we will share with the public our text that will ensure our march to power with a program that is applauded standing in the same way. This text will be in effect as a living document starting from September 9."

"WE ARE ORGANIZING HOPE AGAINST FEAR"

Özel also criticized the operations against CHP municipalities and the dismissal of the Istanbul Provincial Administration, using harsh expressions:

"What is it other than acting against one's own fear to cancel a congress held 2 years ago with the objection of a degenerate, to dismiss a provincial chairman, to keep a mayor in prison? We are here to organize hope against fear. This party is in the same determination as it was 106 years ago, with the same perseverance and courage of the cadres of that day. I say to those whose agenda is the CHP: May those who fear you be worse off than you. If we were as cowardly as you, we could not have founded the Republic. The cadres who will build the government of the future are in the same determination as the cadres of 106 years ago. Let them appoint a trustee to the CHP if they want, let them do their best for a CHP that will be like them, we will walk our own path."

The full statement by Özel is as follows:

“Valuable representatives of our precious press, our valuable reporter friends who follow our party, September 4 - 9 will be celebrated as the founding week of the Republican People's Party. As you know, we decided on this decision together last year at our Change Congress, which we held again between September 4 - 9."

“A DIFFERENT EXHIBITION WILL BE OPENED EVERY YEAR AT THE MEMORY MUSEUM”

"The most important product of our change congress was the change of our charter. We carried out the charter change we promised at our congress around these days last year. And there, we defined our party's founding week in our charter. As you know, the official founding application of the Republican People's Party was made on September 9, 1923. A copy of this petition in Ottoman Turkish is in the state archives, one copy is in the party archives, and one is in my office. However, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, at the 1927 congress - which we know as the congress where he read his great Nutuk (Speech) - began this congress with these sentences: ‘Our party had emerged nine years ago. Our first congress was held in Sivas to cover all of Anatolia and Rumelia. Therefore, our great congress, whose opening we are proud of today, is the second great congress of our organization after the Sivas Congress.’ As such, the date of September 4 comes to the agenda as another founding date because the Republican People's Party accepts the Sivas Congress as its first congress. Many historians have always said that this date should be celebrated as the founding day, and journalists and columnists who follow the Republican People's Party closely have occasionally included these discussions. Last year, with a motion given by our delegates, we declared the week between September 4 - 9 as the founding week, referring to these meaningful dates, and we wanted this week to be celebrated every year with a special and strong theme, and for academics, scientists, politicians, and everyone who is interested in and follows the Republican People's Party, all stakeholders, to be included in the celebration program. Now we are on the opening day of the first of that week. And I wanted to share firsthand how we will evaluate this week and what we will do this week. And we have a Memory Museum, as you know. Every year, we will have an exhibition in front of and inside our Memory Museum with a different theme. I wanted to accompany you in visiting the first of this exhibition and introducing it to you."

“WE COMMEMORATE ATATÜRK AND OUR FOUNDING CADRES WITH GRATITUDE”

“Today we are at a turning point in history. 106 years ago, we took one of the most important steps on the road to our independence and our Republic together. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha's departure to Samsun, the Havza and Amasya Circulars, and the Erzurum Congress, he came to Sivas, and in the representative committee he chaired in Sivas, 41 congress delegates discussed and talked for a week about how to save the country that emerged from the Great War and was occupied. And a declaration was issued. In this declaration, it was stated that it is essential to make the national will prevail for the realization of our national independence. Mandate and protection were rejected for the first time in clear language. The societies, associations, and structures carrying out the struggle in their regions united under the name of the Society for the Defense of Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia. Years later, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk defined the Sivas Congress as ‘The place where the decisions preparing the foundation of a nation were made.’ That congress is, as I mentioned a moment ago, our party's first congress, and on the 106th anniversary of that congress, we once again commemorate Atatürk and our founding cadres, and everyone who participated in that congress, with mercy and gratitude.”

“THE HISTORICAL EXHIBITION CAN BE VISITED UNTIL OCTOBER 29”

“I would like to thank our valuable academician Ali Açıkgöz for his efforts in the organization of this week and the presence of this meaningful exhibition, this historical exhibition, this unique exhibition that we will visit in a moment, and the valuable advisory board he worked with. The exhibition will be open to visitors for four hours a day - that is, it will be open all day, but it can be visited with a guide for 4 hours - until October 29. I would like to thank our 10 friends from the Youth Branches who were selected by receiving special training here. In addition, three women from our Central Executive Board have great efforts here. I would like to underline the efforts of our Secretary General Ms. Sayek Böke, Ms. Aylin Nazlıaka, and Ms. Gül Çiftci, who prepared both our exhibition and our week with day and night work, as well as the efforts of all our deputy chairmen regarding their own fields.”

“WE ARE ONE OF THE LEADING PROGRAM PARTIES”

“The Republican People's Party is one of the world's leading program parties. The vision put forward in our programs for 102 years has been carried into actions that transform Turkey. Our party programs have always included the visions of democratization, development, justice, and the social state that we have aimed for since the founding of our Republic. Our developmentalist understanding and development moves, our desire for a strong social state that is the voice of the voiceless, our determination to establish justice, and our goal of building democracy have all been included in our programs. Undoubtedly, they will continue to be included from now on. Most importantly, the Republican People's Party has always shown the necessary will to turn this vision and goals it adopted in its programs into reality. It continues to do so today. You will see while visiting today, the periods when the Republican People's Party was away from power and which turned into crises and chaos; especially the necessity that brought out the Republican People's Party, an occupation, a disbanded army, a lost sovereignty, and various partition plans established over the country, partition plans of powerful states. In this process, the Republican People's Party comes and first organizes a salvation, then puts forward a founding vision. With this vision, together with a developmentalist program, it saves the country from captivity. It saves it from misery. It saves it from hunger. It saves it from diseases. And all of a sudden, in the words of Gazi, it creates 15 million young people in 10 years. It becomes a country that can build airplane factories, engine factories, and train factories from a country that did not have a single common pin. And this is possible with the Republican People's Party coming to the rescue and implementing a developmentalist government.”

“THE REPUBLICAN PEOPLE'S PARTY IS THE LOCOMOTIVE OF THE STRENGTHENING PERIOD”

“Afterwards, the process experienced after this period was taken over by İsmet Pasha, the comrade-in-arms of the savior Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, an important value of the Republic, a great soldier, a great diplomat, after his passing; in 1950, saying ‘Let there not be a one-man regime, let there be a Republic,’ and it was tried and failed in the early Republican periods... That is, there is a Republic in a country. But what makes it a democracy is not the existence of the government; it is the existence, freedom, and power of the opposition. And it is that the opposition can come to power, that the government and the opposition can change hands, can change places. İsmet Pasha achieves this on the night of May 14, 1950. He achieves it by losing an election. He loses the election, everyone turns around and says, ‘I guess you won't give the power to them.’ İsmet Pasha says, ‘No. This is my defeat, it is the victory of Turkish democracy.’ We have been living in a multi-party regime since that day. And within that multi-party regime, the government of the Democrat Party comes in the 1950s. It becomes a government with its pluses and minuses, its sins and virtues, its rights and wrongs. While it should have been that this government changed hands 10 years later and the Republican People's Party came to power from the opposition, if it could convince them of its own theses, it should have taken over the government with the democracy it brought itself; while it was preparing for this, and while it had written its first declaration of goals for this... While the existence of an institution like the Constitutional Court was defined in this declaration, unfortunately, instead of a government change as it should be, a military coup occurs. After this military coup, the country experiences processes where new chaotic days, discussions, and fratricidal conflicts are experienced, but on the other hand, the Republican People's Party exists as a hope, and the Justice Party, which originates from the Democrat Party, is sometimes in power and sometimes in opposition, and a struggle takes place within civil politics. And regarding the importance of program-making, the importance of putting forward a vision document, first the left-of-center defined by İsmet Pasha, but Ecevit and his friends who filled it with the Left-of-Center Movement and the declarations to the 'Akgünler' (White Days), the Republican People's Party, once again in chaotic and difficult periods, both by developing a coalition culture and coming to power with the National Salvation Party, making developmentalist moves, and in foreign policy, again inheriting from Atatürk and İsmet Pasha, first diplomacy, when necessary struggle, when necessary negotiation, but with a foreign policy understanding that is honorable, stands tall, and achieves results, it both ends the cruelty in Cyprus and brings peace to Cyprus for the Greeks as well. It names the operation the Peace Operation, and no one's nose has bled in Cyprus since that day. And while the Republican People's Party defines a new developmentalism; this time, it becomes the locomotive of another period of development and strengthening where it puts populism at the center, puts the social state at the center, and where four out of every three workers can attain union guarantees until another coup comes, with retirement security, work accident insurance, the right to organize, and ultimately. It becomes the government, it becomes the opposition. But it can emerge as the first party in all four of the elections it entered in 1970, two local and two general.”

“A PERIOD WHEN THE NATION LOOKS INTO THE EYES OF THE CHP”

“Now, at the end of a phase of history without the Republican People's Party, again in the 1980s with Özal, Demirel, Necmettin Erbakan, and later with the Justice and Development Party governments, with their virtues, sins, pluses, and minuses, many services they put forward, many products they put forward, and unfortunately many problems carried to today... We will see in the place we visit together that once again, the Republican People's Party's government, that government that came and broke new ground, just as it saved from captivity, just as it brought the multi-party regime, just as it brought union rights, just as it brought freedom of the press, just as it expanded workers' rights in every field, just as it could promise land to the landless peasant, just as it could promise land reform with what it did and could not do... In the process, with what they achieved or what some prevented them from achieving, we have come to the same point once again with the founding will and the savior perspective, but ultimately with a visionary and developmentalist approach, we have met in the same place, in a period when history loads the same burden onto the back of the Republican People's Party, when the nation looks into its eyes with the same expectation, at one of those breaking points of history, we will feel to our very bones, with every sentence we construct and every step we take here, both with the exhibition we will visit today and throughout the week regarding democracy, justice, development, and prosperity, that we are on the eve of the end of one era and the beginning of a new one.”

“A PARTICIPATORY AND INCLUSIVE PROCESS WAS CONDUCTED”

“What happened up to here? A participatory, inclusive, and dynamic process was conducted up to here. We had given the good news after the charter congress. We said that we are in a program congress. First, provincial advisory boards were held in our 81 provinces, and district advisory boards were held in our 973 districts. All actors in the locality, whether party members or not, tradesmen, farmers, industrialists of that region, non-governmental organizations, unions, and tradesmen chambers organized in those places were invited to these boards. The reports of those places were discussed in the second provincial advisory boards. This inclusivity and dynamism were invited at the provincial level. Subsequently, or rather simultaneously, several committees looked at Europe, the world, and party programs that make social democrats in power and bring prosperity to the people in the world. In Ankara and Istanbul, many meetings were held where I chaired the delegation for some symbolic visits; business world visits, non-governmental organization visits, union visits, and contacts with opinion leaders and society's opinion makers. And at the end of all of them, as you will see in our history, there are some books, but under the books, there are sacks of opinions, publications, and bales of discussions.”

“YOU CANNOT DEFINE THE FUTURE WITHOUT TALKING TO YOUNG PEOPLE”

“We spent a year accumulating these and more. We managed to reach the point we aimed for, which we wanted to reach by the end of April - beginning of May, with a few months' delay after the March 19 civil coup process; then by turning nights into days, our friends sacrificed a few peaceful days they could spend with their families, working on weekends, not taking vacations, and we managed to reach the day we aimed for with everything we accumulated. What will be done in the next process? You will see round tables in almost every part of this building, including the exhibition area, we seem unable to resist Selin Hoca's request any longer. You will see round tables in every possible place of this 14-story building, including almost the executive floor. Tomorrow we will be together with academics. Scientists and experts will come together. An attendance exceeding 600, outside of us. They will sit down and discuss everything in every field; from youth policies to unionization, from freedom of the press to internal security policies, from projects and ideas for national defense policies and the national defense industry, to what will be done in the field of national education and pre-school education, to the YÖK (Higher Education Council) reform - may the name not be similar - to the reform to be made regarding higher education, with scientists and academics who are experts in the subject, with over 600 participants. The next day, this time we have another process. If you are defining a future, you cannot do it without talking to young people, without getting their consent, without putting forward a vision as they say. We will be here in our building with 250 young people. Also, we will be in outdoor spaces; in social activities, in discussions, we will be in concerts, in runs. But in this building, under the leadership of our youth branches and our MYK (Central Executive Board) member who organizes youth policies, each of us will be with 250 young people in this building... Some of them are young friends who have specialized in their fields worldwide and have completed their doctorates. Some are university students. Some are high school students, young people who carry their problems and worries. Some are neither in education nor in employment; home-bound youth. With those who do motorcycle courier work to support their homes or those who are busy looking for work and have to work in professions outside their fields... But together with the most accurate representative committee from the young people; ‘What are we putting in our program for young people, what do we know, what kind of Turkey are we promising them?’ We said from this podium, ‘Young people have decided to stay for one more election this evening.’ Can we build the Turkey they will stay in? If we are going to build it, what will we do together, how will we succeed? We will have a togetherness where we will discuss all together.”

“THE PROGRAM WILL BE A LIVING DOCUMENT STARTING FROM SEPTEMBER 9”

“In the following days, there was a Small Congress in the Republican People's Party's past charters that was removed and caused discomfort later. Instead of the Small Congress, we will have a 600-person Council of Organization Representatives, covering provincial chairmen, with participation scaled according to the votes we received in the provinces and the populations of those provinces... But together with our previous term chairmen, secretaries general, and honorary members in defined special duties. The administrators of today will sit down and this time, we will discuss the text brought before us by the early editorial teams coming from academics, young people, and the field, with our organization... After all, it is a party program. We will bring it to a point by discussing it. The final word; of course, belongs to the elected delegate. It is the program that we matured and wrote here with the texts suggested by the delegations that look at the world and contribute from the academy, which he actually started to discuss in the district - if he is a delegate from a district, he comes to our congress -, participated in the Provincial Advisory Board in the province, and even participated for the first time and where his own provincial chairmanship and the organization representative they chose and sent discussed thoroughly, officially in front of all our delegates on the day of our congress in its matured form. Of course, open to motions, open to amendment motions. But with the spirit in the charter... How did we discuss the charter for months in front of all of you? Then when they said ‘Let's see what will happen at the Charter Congress?’, if we made a charter that was applauded standing with full consensus, with 81 chairmen and almost unanimous consent, where the most objected article received 26 objection votes, and almost all articles passed unanimously, we will have shared our text that defines the Republican People's Party's march to power with all of Turkey with a program that is applauded standing in the same way. The matured part of the text is now suitable for saying ‘We say this on this subject’ in the field. After gaining official status, it can be printed and distributed officially. But I would like to express that our party program, which is compatible with our Presidential Candidate Office, will be in effect as a living document starting from September 9 as a text that can form the basis for Turkey's future program and our Presidential candidate's government program, that speaks with it, and is compatible with it.”

“MULTI-PARTY POLITICS IN TURKEY IS UNDER THREAT”

“Valuable members of the press, we are going through one of the most difficult periods of history as a country. It is like this both economically and in terms of the difficult period the multi-party regime has been put into. It is like this in terms of judicial independence, in terms of separation of powers. It is like this in terms of the legislative power exclusively used by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, which is the embodiment of the spirit in the Sivas Congress and the subsequent congress, unfortunately being used jointly with a constitutional amendment that is controversial and aimed at the regime under state of emergency conditions. The definition of gray areas is problematic, there is no higher court structure that will eliminate violations of the opposite area... We are in a process where we are experiencing a very difficult period in terms of the decisions of the existing one being frequently bypassed, where those who want to tell their troubles are alone, those who want to raise their voices can remain faint, otherwise those who do the opposite are punished in the heaviest way, detention has turned into a pre-execution method, the detention measure, which should be an exception, has turned into the rule, and the trustee, which the President of the country heralded would be an exception from now on, is the rule according to the geography and is still not resolved. Unfortunately, these are the heavy consequences of a government that came to power with democracy getting off the democracy train and choosing to govern the country not with the ballot box but with pressure. Unfortunately, every person and every institution that is a democratic threat to the government is wanted to be eliminated. Heavy prices are being tried to be paid to our nation so that one person and those around him can remain in power. The summary of what we are experiencing is this: In Turkey, Erdoğan's interests and the nation's interests have now separated from each other. The interests and goals of the People's Alliance have diverged from the nation's expectations. Erdoğan is in a position to sacrifice everything for his own interests. The nation's prosperity and peace are included in this. For this reason, multi-party politics in Turkey is under threat. For this reason, our nation is becoming poorer every day. And unfortunately, we are in days when those who should eliminate this nation's poverty say they are prepared for new shocks when reserves recover a little, and prosecutors who receive instructions from the same place as them say ‘We are prepared for new shocks’, and prosecutors who receive instructions from the same place as them make the country experience new shocks. What will we do in return? Our determination is absolute. We are not in the pursuit or intention of defending the Republican People's Party as a position. We will continue to defend democratic politics as a front. This front advocacy will, of course, not be just of one political party; it will be with the common determination and action of the nation and all parties that defend democratic politics.”

“THE APPROACH OF OPPOSITION LEADERS IS MORE VALUABLE THAN ANYTHING”

“When these events happened yesterday, while I was in Istanbul, I would like to express that the valuable phone call we received from Mr. Müsavat Dervişoğlu, his visits today, the wishes of the Saadet Party Chairman regarding the founding week early this morning and his support regarding the process we are in, the social media posts of Mr. Ali Babacan and other opposition leaders, and the written congratulations they sent, are extremely valued, and that their approaches regarding both solidarity and what comes next are more valuable than anything. I would like to express that we feel this way.”

“THE GOVERNMENT HAS ADOPTED FEAR AS A METHOD”

“Valuable friends, there are undoubtedly two ways to influence human behavior. If one of them is fear, it is the monopoly of the People's Alliance. Organizing fear is not our job. The other is hope. This government has adopted fear as a method to change the voter's decision. There is no need to twist and turn the words. It happened in front of all of us. From a professional organization speech made from a podium, to detaining the President and executives of TÜSİAD, keeping them inside for four days, taking them with police on their arms, if this is not spreading and organizing fear to the business world, what is it? Even according to Law No. 2911, or even according to any law, while a university student with the slightest past would not lie in jail for a day even if they received the heaviest sentence from here, keeping them in Silivri for 90 days, if this is not to organize fear for students, to spread fear to their families, what is it for? Putting a 30-year-old young mayor in prison not for his own tender, but for the approval of the AK Party municipality before him, in the municipal council where he is not in the majority, where he is in the minority, with AK Party - MHP votes, if this is not to spread fear to young politicians, local administrators, and to organize fear in the country, what is it? In a process where a political party held its congress two years ago, and is now holding a new one, where the elections of 950 out of a thousand neighborhoods were transparent, smooth, in peace and tranquility, while all district congresses are finishing next weekend, a new provincial congress will be held, to abolish the provincial congress of two years ago with the decision of a madman, to appoint a trustee to the provincial chairman of the party that governs that city in a city of 16 million, to take the provincial building to court, to cancel its congress, to keep the mayor of that party who won there in prison, if these are not acts and actions done to spread fear to the nation from one's own fear, what are they? That is why we are in this building for a week to organize hope against those who organize this fear. There is no importance in what those who organize fear against our organizing hope in this one week when our young friends will look to the future with hope, to spoil our mood, to break our morale, to take the smile off our faces, did yesterday, will do today, or will do tomorrow. If it were so, 100 years ago, 106 years ago, when going out to Samsun, what was in hand was the death warrant of the government judiciary of that day. What happens if you appoint a trustee to the provincial chairman of a party that puts the execution warrant on its neck and goes to Samsun to organize salvation and foundation, what happens if you put its Presidential Candidate in prison, what happens if you threaten its Chairman, saying ‘If you do politics like this, we will bring you down. Shut up, sit in Ankara. Stay at the head of the party’ with immoral threats and blackmail, my brother?”

“IF WE WERE AS COWARDLY AS YOU, WE COULD NOT HAVE PASSED TO SAMSUN”

“This party is in the same determination as it was 106 years ago. The cadres of this party are in the same perseverance and courage of the cadres of that day. I say to those who will sit down and discuss how much they can darken Turkey's future in the process from now on. I say to those whose agenda is the Republican People's Party. May those who fear you be worse off than you. If we were as cowardly as you, we could not have passed to Samsun, we could not have waged the War of Independence, we could not have driven out the enemy, we could not have founded the Republic. The courage of the cadres who founded the Republic is in the cadres who will not surrender to the People's Alliance today. The cadres who will build the government of the future are in the same perseverance and determination as 106 years ago. Let the nation question the sincerity of those who cannot say a word to Tom Barrack, who surrender to the American mandate in Syria, who get up to operate the British plan together with Israel and walk on the exact opposite path of what they said until yesterday, and who are far from sincerity, saying ‘We will take steps towards domestic policy design, towards Turkey's future.’ We are here once again after 100 years to defend social peace, to defend social equality, to defend Turkey's future, to tear down this siege, to save this nation from captivity, to establish democracy once again, to promise a Turkey without bans to young people, to promise a visa-free Europe, a visa-free world to young people and the entire nation, to make Turkey an inseparable part, a full member of the European Union, to promise wealth to everyone, peace to everyone, prosperity to everyone, an economic power far above today's to everyone, to build a Turkey where no one worries about their child's future in the days to come.”

“THIS WEEK IS THE STEP OF THE MARCH TO POWER”

“We are here to work on how we will govern, how we will develop, how we will enrich, how we will liberate. We are here with the accumulation of years, with the effort, labor, and energy of the last one year, with the professionalism and meticulousness of the coming one week. I invite those who dig pits, those who throw mud, to wallow together at that level, in that mud vortex, to splash mud around, to wallow in that mud, to wallow in that pit they drag Turkey into. I invite all patriots other than them to walk together not into that mud sea, but into bright, beautiful, clean, shining, and rich tomorrows. This call is the call of this march. The step to be taken this week is the step of the march to power. From now on, nothing will be as those mud-slingers and scoundrels want. Let them appoint trustees to all provincial administrations if they want. Let them appoint a trustee to the Republican People's Party if they want. Let them spend effort for all kinds of political engineering for a Republican People's Party that will be like them if they want. With the faith, determination, and spirit of 100 years ago, with the trust and love we have for each other, with great courage, we will walk our path. I invite them to continue to mud-sling each other in that mud sea, to throw mud around, and I invite our nation to walk once again to bright, prosperous, rich, strong, and happy tomorrows with Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's party. Thank you all, friends. Thank you, long live.”

News Source: 12punto