Ekrem İmamoğlu addresses youth with 'state wisdom, state tradition' video: The desperate trustee mentality

In his post, İmamoğlu wrote: “The state must stop fighting against the nation and instead unite the nation's wisdom, conscience, and will with its own strategic wisdom. Because this is the only path for our democracy, our security, our development, and our social peace. Our struggle is exactly the struggle for this.” 

In his video message, İmamoğlu said the following:

"Dear youth, today I want to talk to you about whether there is a state wisdom belonging to one person, or the thousand-year-old state tradition of our 86 million citizens in these lands.

We are facing a mentality that turns our nation's virtue, wisdom, and achievements upside down by calling it 'state wisdom.' Its only concern is to protect its power through the judiciary and by using force; to market this to our people as 'state wisdom.' Thus, to impose unthinkable lawlessness upon society. In the palace where this scenario is written, roles are distributed to those who will carry out this marketing and manage the operations. Bad scenarios are for bad actors. In this scenario, both the state and wisdom are insulted. Someone who wants to use the state as a tool for their own personal power; a collaborator's plot that mocks the nation's wisdom by calling it 'wisdom,' and the puppets of this scenario...

This is not state wisdom; at best, it is the foolishness of those who dare to mock the wisdom of the state and the nation. Does Turkey have a state wisdom? Yes, it does. The wisdom of the Turkish state gains meaning when it joins with the wisdom of its nation. Whenever the state's wisdom drifts away from the nation's wisdom, the people's conscience, the public interest, and justice, it denies itself, becomes instrumentalized, and enters the service of others. This is what we are experiencing today.

Yusuf Has Hacib says in Kutadgu Bilig: 'The state stands with the law (töre). If the law is corrupted, the state collapses.' That is, our unity and our state survive not through individual interests, but through the law; that is, through statutes, justice, rights, and law. If the law is corrupted, meaning if statutes, justice, and law are corrupted, unity falls apart, and the state collapses. This is exactly what thousand-year-old state wisdom is. The state becoming a tool or apparatus for someone else brings the end of the state; the state collapses.

Justice is the foundation of property; this has always been the motto of these lands. This is the true state wisdom. The state's wisdom is justice. A wisdom that destroys justice cannot be state wisdom. What I am telling you is not the cry of a politician deprived of his freedom; it is the historical warning of a soldier of a determined march who will never stop worrying about the future of the nation and the survival of the state, no matter the cost. Because what is being executed is our state order. What I am doing is a historical warning rising from the podium of history and reason.

The summary of the palace mentality's state wisdom in recent years is this: With the Ergenekon-Balyoz conspiracies, for which it did not refrain from acting as prosecutor, it used the judiciary like a sword with cadres designed by a cult. It set traps for our army and caused great harm to our world of ideas and intellectuals. In Gezi, instead of listening to those defending the right to the city, it resorted to violence; children and young people lost their lives. Those involved in this struggle were made to pay heavy prices.

''YOUR PARTNERS, TO WHOM YOU SAID 'WHAT DID YOU ASK FOR THAT WE DID NOT GIVE' IN 2016, CAUSED THE JULY 15 COUP ATTEMPT''

In 2015, instead of sharing power after losing the election, you prolonged the process and protected your seat in an environment of violence. In 2016, your partners, to whom you said 'what did you ask for that we did not give,' caused the July 15 coup attempt. Our nation had to fight its struggle on the streets and in the squares against the monster you created. By giving martyrs, this people gathered the state from the streets.

''YOU DAMAGED THE FAIR AND IMPARTIAL ELECTION INSTITUTION''

In 2017, you inflicted a regime that suspended democracy, justice, and the rule of law for one man upon our nation in a referendum. By saying 'the one who takes the horse has passed Üsküdar,' you had unstamped ballots counted and damaged the fair and impartial election institution, which has been the honor of the Republic of Turkey and its democracy since the 1950 elections. You laid hands on the honor of democracy. Through the self-serving mentality of the powerful, the incompetent order, and the monstrous system, you have dragged our people into poverty for 10 years.

''THE DESPERATE TRUSTEE MENTALITY AT THE HEAD OF THE CHP IS MERELY A DETAIL''

In 2019, the wisdom that used the law as a weapon against its rivals made a new coup against the national will by canceling the Istanbul local elections. In 2024, the main opposition, which brought about change in the CHP, became the first party in the local elections. The so-called wisdom that could not tolerate me continued its intervention against the national will with the March 19, 2025 coup, finding no other way to defeat its rival who had beaten it four times while he was a presidential candidate, intensifying its conspiracies, operations, and torture by throwing him in jail through the judiciary. On May 21, 2026, it continued to make new coups against the nation's will by turning the judiciary into a weapon again to eliminate the main opposition and appointing a trustee to the CHP. The desperate trustee mentality at the head of the CHP is merely a detail.

Both March 19 and May 21 are stages of the same coup. The goal of the coup is to destroy the democratic opposition and eliminate national sovereignty, free will, and democracy in our country. This is the summary of the state wisdom fabrication you are trying to force upon our nation. The result has been poverty, unemployment, lack of future, hopelessness, and unhappiness. The state wisdom rhetoric used by this regime is designed as a curtain for evil intertwined with incompetence.

''A GOVERNMENT THAT DAMAGES THE REPUBLIC AND DEMOCRACY FOR THE SAKE OF A SEAT CANNOT BE STATE WISDOM''

Our nation now knows very well that where there is no justice, there is no abundance. With your injustice and lawlessness, you have dried up the abundance of these lands. A wisdom that dries up the abundance of its country and leaves its nation in misery cannot be state wisdom. A government that seeks its legitimacy abroad does not come near state wisdom. A government that damages the republic and democracy for the sake of a seat cannot be state wisdom. What you are trying to market as state wisdom is the power intoxication of those who see themselves as the owners of the country. We, on the other hand, are the cadres who blend our state tradition, the republic, and the true wisdom of our state and our unity with democracy, independence, justice, and development. The state needs to be saved from this foolishness. Do not pass off non-existent wisdom as wisdom. The state must stop fighting against the nation and instead unite the nation's wisdom, conscience, and will with its own strategic wisdom. This great power of ours, which has been blended with our thousand-year-old state tradition, reached the present day, and integrated with the wisdom, virtue, and faith of our 86 million citizens, is our unshakable identity. Because this is the only path for our democracy, our security, our development, and our social peace. Our struggle is exactly the struggle for this.

Dear youth, with this belief, you will be the pioneers of this journey. Let's march, friends."

The state must stop fighting against the nation and instead unite the nation's wisdom, conscience, and will with its own strategic wisdom.

Because this is the only path for our democracy, our security, our development, and our social peace.

Our struggle is exactly the struggle for this. pic.twitter.com/IKqf5vAyEq

— Presidential Candidate Office (@CAOIletisim1) June 17, 2026

News Source: 12punto