According to main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the municipalities run by his party members are sources of attraction and Turkish and foreign tourists prefer these areas.
He said the fact that people in Istanbul flock to districts run by CHP mayors during the weekend proves the success of the CHP.
Speaking at the meeting of CHP mayors gathered in Ankara from all across the country, Kılıçdaroğlu said the CHP municipalities should work hard to attract foreign tourists.
This was in stark contrast to his recent interview with the German Focus magazine where he discouraged German tourists from coming to Turkey.
It seems the CHP leader has to make up his mind on whether he wants Turkey to attract tourists and host them even if they are in the areas run by CHP mayors or if he wants tourists to keep away from our country because he claims Turkey is not a safe place.
It seems the CHP leader has forgotten that municipal services have always been the strong point of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of this country.
Erdoğan as a member of the Welfare Party (RP) won the local elections in 1994 and became the mayor of Istanbul defeating the CHP's Nurettin Sönmez. When Erdoğan took over the city it was a wasted city with no hope for the future. It had no water, no proper sanitation or proper municipal services. The city was one big waste dump. Erdoğan changed all that in a matter of years solving the city's chronic water supply problem, building dams, cleaned up the city and made it habitable once again.
His success in Istanbul carried him as the wonder boy of Turkish politics and fueled him to found the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in 2002. Since then he has been running Turkey first as prime minister and then as the head of state.
The AK Party became the party that provided the best municipal services across the country and thus was extremely successful and popular. In some places, CHP candidates copied the work done by the AK Party and were also very successful and popular.
Look at Prof. Yılmaz Büyükerşan in Eskişehir who turned the city into a green haven in the heart of Anatolia. Look at Fethi Yaşar who turned the Yenimahalle municipality into a success story. They all imitated the AK Party and thus allowed Kılıçdaroğlu the chance to brag about successful CHP municipalities.
Yet Kılıçdaroğlu seems to overlook the fact that the CHP municipalities in many places have ruined districts and cities. Look at the mess that the CHP has created in the İzmir municipality. İzmir can't provide its people with proper water services despite help from the government. Rubbish mountains are the order of the day in many CHP municipalities because workers refuse to collect garbage. Besides all that many foreigners who live in the plush Çankaya district see how bad the CHP municipal services are. Many left-wing supporters of the CHP want the affluent Çayyolu district to be taken out of the Çankaya municipality area and given back to Yenimahalle, which is also run by a mayor from the CHP. That is how bad the Çankaya municipality is.
Can Kılıçdaroğlu say anything about this mess?
