As you know, the second round of the UBP congress will be held on February 24… Immediately after this announcement, I got comments from the parties firsthand on the Günlük program I host on Ada tv…
First, we connected by phone with UBP MP Hasan Taçoy. In an excited voice, Taçoy commented on the result, saying, “We are holding the second round months after it should have taken place on October 28. It will be a very exciting congress. This result is a victory for resolve and justice. I congratulate the members of the party council who made this decision”…
Immediately after that conversation, UBP MP Ahmet Çaluda was my second guest on the phone. Our conversation with Çaluda was about employment policy. Çaluda said, “It is true that people have been hired. But everyone criticizing it now has done the same thing. Hiring takes place after the budget is passed. Our people want to work for the State.” At the end of our conversation, Çaluda claimed that İrsen Küçük would win the second round.
Following this claim, in a live phone interview with Zorlu Töre, one of the UBP MPs, Töre said, “A case whose outcome was clear dragged on for this long. In my view, the Prime Minister’s lawyers and advisers misled and misinformed him.” On the subject of hiring, Töre invited all delegates to the Prime Minister’s Office, criticizing Küçük by saying, “Mr. Küçük has treated delegates unfairly when it comes to hiring. I invite all delegates, and even our entire public, to the Prime Minister’s Office tomorrow. Let them go and ask for jobs”…
UBP MP and leadership candidate Ahmet Kaşif began by wishing the second round well during our phone interview. Kaşif said, “I can’t say anything about the people who have been hired. But the wrongness of the policy being pursued is clear. We are going to a congress that is four months overdue. May it be good for our country…”
Finally, I spoke by phone with Prime Minister İrsen Küçük. Of course, I was going to bring up the issue of hiring… I told the Prime Minister that a significant part of the public was making comments about hiring that began with, “If I were a delegate’s relative.” The Prime Minister said, “I’m hearing things to this effect too. Being related to a delegate is not one of our criteria for hiring.” I told the Prime Minister that there had been reports of 300 people being hired, and asked how many people had been hired since October 21. The Prime Minister’s response was, “I can’t give you an exact number right now. We can get the exact figure from the relevant colleagues.” Finally, I asked the Prime Minister who would win on the evening of February 24. The Prime Minister said, “I won on October 21, I won the one before that, and I’ll win on February 24 too”…
(Note: That was more or less what was discussed on the program. The speculation and/or events that have actually taken place so far have worn us all down considerably. For that reason, I won’t comment on these statements; readers can make up their own minds…)
There is no doubt that what we have experienced is a significant point of reference for what else we might go through before February 24. But I hope these experiences will teach us a lesson. I hope that, in these days when things are coming tumbling out into the open, we will correctly identify the white sheep and the black sheep. And I hope that on February 24 this chapter will be closed, and that we will finally fight not over a party congress but to lead our country toward better days…