Özgür Özel explains the behind-the-scenes of the party congress decision

The Republican People's Party (CHP) will hold a charter congress on September 6-9. CHP Chairman Özgür Özel explained how he reached the decision to hold the charter congress in a statement to Halk TV columnist İsmail Saymaz.

When asked by Saymaz, "Why did you decide to hold a congress?", Özel gave the following response:

"Before the congress last year, the former administration was saying, 'We will hold a charter congress on November 23-24, 2023.' Based on this, I said, 'I will also hold it on that date.' I won the election. The next day, I settled into my office. The first thing I did was call the party's lawyers. I said, 'What is the status of the charter congress?' The answer I received was, 'There is no such congress, Özgür Bey; the decision was not made, and no newspaper announcement was published.' I said, 'How can that be?' and called the former deputy chairman. He said, 'We said that for political reasons. If you are going to hold it, you need to convene the Party Assembly (PM), make a decision, and then do it.'"

Stating that he had not yet received his certificate of election at that time and that the PM would meet on the Saturday after receiving it, Özel used the following words: "I told the PM, 'We need to make a decision, publish it in the newspaper, and hold the congress in the middle of December.' They said, 'Are we going to determine the candidates for the local elections, or are we going to hold a congress?' I said, 'Let's ask the provincial chairs.' I asked the chairs. They unanimously decided to postpone the charter congress and focus on the election."

Explaining that after this was announced, many people on social media and within the party made comments such as "He gave his word of honor, he didn't keep his promise," Özgür Özel recounted that he discussed the congress decision with the provincial chairs and the PM, saying, "If you see fit, I want to call for the congress in line with the decision we made here."

"I CHOSE THIS SO THEY WOULDN'T SAY HE RAN AWAY"

"When the extraordinary congress article is regulated in our charter, there is no election item if the PM makes the call. If the chairman makes the call, he can add an election item. Since it could be exploited if the decision was made by the PM due to an election reservation, I found it more appropriate for the decision to be made by me," said Özel, describing the process by adding: "The party came out first in the election after 50 years. It has been coming out first in all polls since that day. It is clear that we have widened the gap in all polls this month. In some, the gap has reached seven points. In this situation, they are still trying to create an impression as if the party is unsuccessful, things are going badly, and we are worried about ourselves."

Özgür Özel stated: "I made this decision so that there wouldn't be statements like 'They did this so we wouldn't add an election item,' so the party wouldn't be damaged, and so that it wouldn't be perceived as if there was a concern that didn't exist. If someone has a complaint about a chairman and an administration that the citizens and party members do not have a complaint about, that is their business. But I chose this so they wouldn't say, 'He ran away, that's why he had the PM make the decision, he didn't make it himself' in an attempt to exploit it. We have full confidence in ourselves and our delegates."

News Source: 12punto