The head of the opposition Turkish Republican People’s Party pledges to eliminate the authoritarian rule of Erdogan

Ankara,(ST)-Yesterday, the Republican People’s Party, the largest opposition party in Turkey, re-elected Kemal Kılıçdaroclu as its president for the seventh time.

Turkish media reported that Kılıçdaroclu, who has headed the party since May 2010, obtained during its thirty-seventh general conference the votes of 1,251 delegates out of 1318 who participated in the poll, while 67 votes were considered invalid.

In his opening speech, Kılıçdaroclu criticized the practices of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime and its privatization of economic policies, noting that the Justice and Development Party and its leader Erdogan had ruled Turkey for 18 years, but no one in Parliament knows where they spent 2.4 trillion liras, equivalent to $ 350 billion.

Kılıçdaroclu pledged to work to eradicate the authoritarian rule of Erdogan and replace it with the rule of the people and to develop a plan to eliminate unemployment, poverty, incompetence and despair as he called for a return to the parliamentary system, a demand supported by all opposition parties in the country.

He emphasized freedom of the press, gender equality, combating political favoritism, strengthening efforts to fight corruption, changing the electoral system, better strategic planning for the country, and freedom of expression. The party also plans to end the practice of appointing government officials to replace elected mayors, especially after those officials seized 51 of the 65 municipalities the People Democratic Party won it in the local elections last year, along with its focus on combating waste of public funds and improving the Court of Auditors for better oversight of public spending.

Haifaa Mafalani