President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday tore into his main opposition for what he called “remorselessness” and “opportunism” following deadly tragedies and corruption scandals in Türkiye’s opposition-run cities.
“The people’s troubles are nothing to the opposition who cares about only their own future and prosperity,” Erdoğan told lawmakers of his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) at a parliamentary meeting in the capital, Ankara.
He accused the main opposition, the Republican People's Party (CHP), of being bogged down in a “power struggle that has reached such scales, they see nothing but their own pockets.”
The president also responded to criticism from the CHP over his remarks at a provincial AK Party congress two weeks earlier.
Speaking to his supporters in central Konya province, Erdoğan argued that the corruption cases filed against several CHP municipalities were only the tip of the iceberg for the opposition. “That is why they are panicking; they know more things will come to light.”
“They were bothered by that because they know very well what they state they are in. They are panicking and threatening our judiciary,” he said on Wednesday.
Türkiye’s oldest party has been hit by back-to-back scandals in recent months, including corruption, links to PKK terrorists and threats against judicial members.
In Istanbul’s Beşiktaş strict, CHP Mayor Rıza Akpolat was arrested on Jan. 17 on charges of tender rigging, which prompted Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, a likely presidential challenger against Erdoğan, to target the public prosecutor on Akpolat’s case.
The CHP has singled out Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor Akın Gürlek for acting as a “guillotine” for Erdoğan following Akpolat’s arrest.
Imamoğlu accused Gürlek of having a “corrupt mindset” and said: “We will change that mindset so nobody would take away your children in a dawn raid.”
Authorities have since launched a probe against Imamoğlu for “statements qualifying as threats” against Istanbul’s chief public prosecutor and his family, as well as “targeting persons tasked with countering threats and terrorism.”
Istanbul's mayor was just this week handed another judicial investigation for accusing an expert witness of serving as a political tool to oppress the opposition.
Violating legal privacy, he named the expert in a public address, saying he had been appointed for several judicial probes into him and other CHP district municipalities in Istanbul and calling him “bold enough to fool the courts.”
Imamoğlu was already sentenced in 2022 for insulting public officials when he criticized a decision to cancel the first round of earlier municipal elections, in which he defeated the ruling AK Party candidate.
The government dismisses accusations of political interference in the cases and says the judiciary is independent.
Erdoğan said: “Everybody knows what their towers of money and their many corruptions serve.”
The CHP has also drawn Erdoğan’s ire for what he called “slanders” immediately following a fire at a ski hotel in Türkiye’s northwestern Bolu province, which killed 78, including 36 children.
“We have been careful enough to keep the fire out of daily political arguments, but the more solemn we have been, the opposition has attempted to drag the incident to other directions,” Erdoğan said.
The CHP officials have spewed defamations left and right instead of coming out and speaking a word of sorrow, the president said.
“But we will not allow opportunism or cheekiness. We will not let them shamelessly trample all over the heartbreak of our people,” Erdoğan said.
He reported that 28 people have been taken into custody so far in connection with the fire and police arrested 19, including the hotel's owner and several people from the Bolu mayor's office, also run by the CHP.
The blaze, which appeared to have started at the restaurant section on the fourth floor of the wooden-clad hotel, spread quickly through to the upper floors. Guests and staff jumped out windows to escape smoke and flame-filled rooms or dangled sheets out of windows to lower themselves.
“It has been confirmed that the hotel’s fire detection system did not function, no emergency teams were on-site at the hotel, the sprinklers were insufficient and the hotel’s emergency exit doors were not built enough to meet the need,” Erdoğan said.
He also confirmed that the inspectors’ findings largely coincide with the report that the hotel’s shortcomings were covered by municipal officials in December by having it withdrawn fraudulently.
“This scandal, which the mayor is attempting to legitimize by claiming the ‘fire chief must have been afraid,’ must be sensitively dwelled upon,” Erdoğan said.
“Nobody will be able to dodge responsibility, and justice will prevail,” the president vowed. “Nobody can gamble on the lives of my people.”
The Turkish Parliament on Wednesday ruled that a commission of experts should be set up to investigate the fire in all its aspects.
