CHP Chairman Özgür Özel reacted to the dismissal of Tunceli Mayor Cevdet Konak and Ovacık Mayor Mustafa Sarıgül and the appointment of trustees in their place.
In his statement shared on social media, the CHP leader described the decision against CHP’s Ovacık and DEM Party’s Tunceli municipalities as ‘the theft of national will that cannot even be disguised’.
Özel stated that a funeral ceremony that Sarıgül attended in 2012 was made the subject of a lawsuit in 2022 and was deemed a crime in 2024, and wrote, “Condolences are given to the living, not the dead. Neither the family can be held responsible for the crime of their child, nor those who come to condolence…”
The CHP leader said: “Dismissing a mayor who was elected by popular vote for two terms, because of a funeral he attended 12 years ago, is nothing short of the last struggles of an outgoing government. We stand against this unlawfulness, as we do against all attacks against elected mayors.” “We will also resist. We will not surrender this nation to those who put their own interests above Turkey’s interests.”
Meeting with 414 mayors
In another social media post, Özel wrote: “In the March 31 elections, the nation started a process of change of power in Turkey. However, the government resists the will of the nation by conspiring against elected mayors and using the judiciary as a cudgel. It does not evaluate the attacks on municipalities separately, We are determined to show our reaction all together, on November 30, to confront our 414 mayors, trustee municipalism and the government’s attacks on municipalities. “We called for a meeting at our headquarters. We will fight together until the end against this evil that challenges the will of the people, and we will take all necessary steps together.”
Source: www.dunya.com
