Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel angered President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as he upped the ante in insulting rhetoric in a recent speech.
Özel and senior CHP executives are known for their harsh words toward government officials, particularly Erdoğan, as corruption-related arrests of the party’s mayors fueled such rhetoric. In a speech in Istanbul’s Ümraniye district, Özel branded Erdoğan as an “oppressor” and called on him to “leash your dogs,” in an open insult to prosecutors investigating the corruption in CHP-run municipalities.
Erdoğan did not have a political event on Thursday, but he almost apologized as he felt the need to speak about it at a conference on libraries he hosted in Ankara. “I wouldn’t mention it before this select audience, but as politicians, we have to protect the reputation of politics in the face of attacks,” he said. “I was ashamed when I heard the delusional words of the main opposition chair. It is a shame both for his own party and for the political scene of our country,” he said.
“You cannot distinguish whether it is the leader of Türkiye’s second biggest party speaking or someone fixated on insults,” Erdoğan lamented. Özel, indeed, has revealed his intention to remain “fixated” as the president pointed out, as, in the same speech in Ümraniye, he warned Erdoğan he would hear “worse words.”
“Türkiye does not deserve such a political discourse. But we all know too well that if you have a feeble mind, you have a loud mouth and know no boundaries. We are facing a poor guy who lost the link between his mind and his tongue and does not think before he speaks. He is becoming more aggressive, telling more lies every day and defaming people. He hurls insults every day,” he said, referring to Özel’s criticism of the government over corruption probes.
“As we see more coming out of investigations into the tentacles of this octopus that gripped local administrations, he is panicked, he loses control,” he said. Erdoğan often likens criminal networks under investigation at municipalities to an octopus.
“We will certainly not allow our nation to be exposed to this toxic rhetoric infecting the politics and becoming ruder day by day. My colleagues already responded to this man. My advice is simple: We speak less but he should understand more from what we’ve said,” Erdoğan stated.
