Turkey's main opposition CHP's populist promises backfire in first rally
by Daily Sabah
ISTANBULApr 12, 2015 - 12:00 am GMT+3
by Daily Sabah
Apr 12, 2015 12:00 am
The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu started his June 7 general elections rally in Istanbul's Kartal district on Saturday with a low turnout. Some CHP candidates, who will be running for Parliament in the upcoming elections, including media figures Koray Çalışkan and Tuncay Özkan, shared a photograph from the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) Istanbul rally, which attracted over 1 million people last year, and tried portraying it as a photo taken at Saturday's CHP rally in Kartal, which is on the Asian side of the city.
According to sources, the CHP is likely to implement election strategies based on populist promises. Sources at CHP headquarters have said Kılıçdaroğlu will announce his election promises in the coming days, such as a significant increase in the minimum wage, reducing diesel prices to TL 1.5 ($0.60) per liter as well as a poverty wage program for poor families – a family insurance project that aims to pay a certain amount of monthly pay to families who don't have enough income.
For its election campaign and advertising process, the main opposition partnered with Benenson Strategy Group (BSG), the U.S. firm President Barack Obama also recruited for his 2008 presidential bid, and Ali Taran, who is known as a prodigy of advertising in Turkey. Taran gained fame when he ran the Young Party's electoral campaign in the 2002 general elections in which the Young Party won 7.2 percent of the vote. Taran drew crowds to Young Party rallies with free food and a free concert and built the election campaign on populist promises such as doubling the minimum wage and reducing diesel prices to TL 1.
Furthermore, state-run Turkish Radio Television (TRT) denied on Saturday the main opposition party's claims of censoring its political ad. The CHP ad in which an electrical transformer, cats and similar images appear, has been aired on TRT channels since the first week of April, the network said in a statement.
CHP Deputy Chairman Bülent Terzcan accused TRT on Saturday of "having created a new scandal" by not airing the CHP election ad. He said the opposition party has started legal proceedings against the state-run network. In the statement, Terzcan accused the TRT of broadcasting ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) ads that include religious symbols and the flag, which is forbidden under Turkish law, and described the network's directors as biased.
However, the TRT said it received a report from an official broadcasting monitor on April 10 that banned the ad for violating a Supreme Election Board (YSK) decision in regard to political ads. The network said that in previous elections the YSK forced many political ads off air, including those of the AK Party.
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