‘Economic crisis fails to explain the situation in Turkey, this is a collapse’

* Photo: HDP Press

Click to read the article in Turkish

Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chair Mithat Sancar held a speech at the HDP weekly Parliamentary group meeting yesterday (January 11) and addressed a series of current issues such as the economic crisis, the situation of ill prisoners, trustees and possible snap elections.

Sancar first talked about the economic crisis, the attacks on the opposition and the criminalization of the opposition.

Sancar said, "The expression of 'economic crisis' does not suffice to explain what is happening anymore, there is a collapse and the government's mindset wants the people to pay the price for this collapse."

Referring to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, HDP's Sancar said, "There is an administration that has left people breathless under the debris by transferring resources to a handful of capitalists, pro-government circles, the Palace and war."

'It is a struggle for survival now'

HDP Co-Chair Sancar underlined that "what is the case now is not a struggle for making ends meet but a struggle for survival."

Criticizing the price increases that entered into force in Turkey at the midnight of the new year, Mithat Sancar said:

The government brings itself into existence by midnight operations, we know that. Lots of valor and tirades in daytime and an ambush on people's pockets, tables, lives and breaths by midnight decrees... Don't heed what the government says in daytime while selling dreams, but heed what it does in the darkness of the night. All in all, we face a mentality feeding on darkness.

Referring further to the price increases and people's decreasing purchasing power, HDP Co-Chair Mithat Sancar said, "A country of poverty where meat, milk, cheese cannot enter kitchens has been created; hunger is becoming widespread and poverty is getting deeper."

Ill prisoners

In his address to the HDP at the weekly group meeting, HDP's Sancar also talked about the situation of ill prisoners.

He briefly said, "The mentality imposing exploitation, hunger and poverty on people today is also turning prisons into houses of death. Leaving ill prisoners for dead is a de facto capital punishment."

Sancar added, "We have to stand up against these greatly unjust and unfair acts together. We cannot properly wage the struggle about the essence of this regime without standing up against these."

Trustees and snap elections

Referring to the trustees appointed by the Interior Ministry to replace the HDP's elected co-mayors in Turkey's Kurdish-majority eastern and southeastern provinces, HDP Co-Chair Mithat Sancar raised concerns that "trustees still have an attitude disrespecting people's will."

Against this backdrop, Sancar lashed out at the attempts to form a "Devlet Bahçeli Memorial Forest" in the Kurdish-majority Diyarbakır province to be named after the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which is a Turkish nationalist party currently in alliance with the AKP and whose leader Bahçeli has been repeatedly calling for the HDP's closure.

Sancar defined this attempt as "the last example of the recklessness in attacking the people of Diyarbakır, their culture, identity and honor."

Concluding his remarks, Sancar also talked about a possible snap election in Turkey, saying, "We should keep snap election on people's agenda together and turn it into the great request of society. You will see that the ballot box will be brought along then." He also warned against complacency and underlined the importance of ensuring election safety.

"This government will turn to chaos plans," he said, stressing that "the ones who rely on chaos plans, within this government or within the body of the state, will keep on playing their tricks." (AÖ/SD)