For as long as I can remember, there has been poverty in this country. In almost every government office, in almost every municipality... There are exceptions, but you can count them on one hand. Of course, what has happened in the last 20 years has brought a much more brazen and aggressive corruption. Corruption is now a culture of doing business in this country...
Tax evasion from shopkeepers to holding bosses, favoritism and bribery in tenders, let alone getting a turn in a public hospital with the torpedo of an ‘acquaintance’, perhaps with a much more serious illness... We are like this from top to bottom! In other words, if we start by sticking the stick into ourselves, we might be able to become a cleaner society in decades to come. There is no big or small theft or corruption, but we live in Turkey after all, and if we lump the one who is doing a little favor with the one who is doing the most, there is a very high chance that we will not be able to get out of this.
Will the unrivaled opponents of corruption fight corruption?
So let's start with ourselves, let's not forgive the small thieves, but let's organize 90 percent of the struggle against the big thieves. In other words, if we ignore what happened in Beşiktaş Municipality, we would not be acting in a moral manner. However, if we target only the mayor of Beşiktaş and the bureaucrats of the municipality and forget about the big thieves, we will not be acting morally at all. Let me enlarge my hand, this problem is a regime problem and the struggle for it has to be waged on all fronts. And as it can be seen, once you start pursuing this corruption, you will eventually be able to strike a blow against the big corruption center.
The arrest of Rıza Akpolat and some officials in connection with the investigation conducted by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office into the criminal organization allegedly led by Aziz İhsan Aktaş, which allegedly organized tenders by bribing mayors and senior executives of municipalities, is both a political operation of the government and a regime problem in itself... A regime problem, because all those who claim to be fighting corruption are far more corrupt and politically immoral beyond limits than those who are doing this corruption...
When you look at the series of relations, you see the ties of those named in the investigation with the centers of power. And now they are attacking CHP municipalities and organizing a political operation with information coming from their own network of interests. And the rest will follow...
Their hypocrisy is so obvious!... Imagine that there is a former Mayor of Ankara Metropolitan Municipality, AK Party member Melih Gökçek in this country and he is able to walk around freely. Moreover, by throwing mud at everyone... Let's give a more recent example, weren't there rumors about Alinur Aktaş, the former Mayor of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality? Dozens of such names can be mentioned among both AK Party and MHP mayors... And not a single one of the criminal complaints against them has been found worthy of investigation!
‘It is impossible to get rid of this issue as long as ’party elders' exist
But our issue is different... They are the usual suspects when it comes to corruption and organized conspiracies, but the mayors of the main opposition party, which claims to be an alternative to this corrupt, reactionary regime, have no right to draw a dirty profile. Especially in a district like Beşiktaş, which is in the public eye and should be treated with much more care if you remember what happened during Murat Hazinedar's mayoralty...
The issue stems from a process that started before he became a candidate before he became a mayor, and which is actually poisoning politics in Turkey. And it turns into a black hole that sucks in everyone from the top to the bottom. Various ‘party elders’ and their ‘interest clans’ within the parties have a level of influence that disregards internal party democracy in the nomination process. I won't name them one by one here, but if you ask anyone, they can recite who they are by heart! In one way or another, they support one of the candidate candidates and usually, before you know it, he/she is the candidate. Even if the balances change at the headquarters, these landlords continue to rule. You can see this in the smallest districts of Thrace as well as in the cities of the Aegean...
When it comes to a district, province or metropolitan city where winning the election is guaranteed, things get very ugly. It doesn't matter whether he or she is liked by the people or not, if that candidate has somehow received the support of his or her ‘landlord', he or she becomes a candidate. And citizens who care about the future of this country, because they cannot vote for the candidates of parties that have a history of corruption on the other side or boycott the ballot box and allow them to sit in those seats, go and vote for these candidates they do not like or see no hope in! This is how this dirty wheel turns. On one side there is an incompetent, untrustworthy, someone's man, and on the other side there is an insatiable vampire... So you have to vote for the lesser of two evils!
Cleaning the house on the road to power
However, this does not mean that we are obliged to allow this sick attitude, starting with the nomination process for candidates for local governments, to hinder the struggle of a founding party. On the contrary, it is a patriotic duty to break this dirty wheel in the struggle for democracy and freedom! Whatever the case, there are facts that should not be ignored and covered up with a ‘arms are broken, they remain in their own skin’ approach.
Despite the current road accidents, while many opposition parties, especially the CHP, are increasing their votes, it is up to us, in the name of democracy and political morality, to criticize what is happening and demand that it be corrected as soon as possible. Don't look at those who say “Now is not the time” or “This will play into the hands of the AK Party”... Know that they are the ones who cooperate with AK Party and MHP council members in many looting projects. Just like the project on the Etiler Police School land... I can list dozens more examples.
‘Cross-party bagmen’ must be expelled
The CHP should do a spring cleaning as soon as possible... Perhaps a ‘monitoring and supervision board’ should be established under the Vice Presidency in charge of Local Governments. Or perhaps someone brave and not involved in the aforementioned scheme should be appointed to that position... This unit should be tasked with warning about corruption and should not hesitate to expel mayors and officials who do not comply with all warnings from the party without hesitation.
Let me give an example again from Beşiktaş... Remember what happened during Murat Hazinedar's term. First, the party officials lied on their ears and did not listen to the warnings. Then a report on the issue was prepared within the party, but they did not dare to disclose it themselves and served it to the opposition media. Some of the media did not publish it, and Hazinedar sued the newspaper that did. The process went on and on!
If the CHP administration had expelled this person from the party before his dismissal, wouldn't it have gained a few points in terms of political morality? Wouldn't it have been possible to prevent dirty relations? Would it have been possible to transfer some obscure, shadowy municipality employees, even those directly linked to the AK Party or MHP, and give way to the bagmen?
Who placed these shady characters in the municipality and why?
Let me give another example from Beşiktaş Municipality. What relationship can a patriotic person have with this Aziz İhsan Aktaş? Why would Ferit Tutşi, who was the Deputy Mayor of Bağlar Municipality and at the same time the Director of Public Works, be transferred from Bağlar Municipality to Beşiktaş Municipality as ‘Support Services Manager’ when Aktaş received tenders from Diyarbakır-Bağlar Municipality during the mayorship of AKP's Hüseyin Beyoğlu, who is still in prison due to a case in which he was ‘convicted on bribery charges’? Who mediates this? Who connects with such shady names and why? Why are these cross-party interest relations condoned?
Turkey can no longer tolerate the road accidents of the main opposition. It is high time to do the necessary cleaning with a little responsibility and political morality. Just as it is necessary to fight against the corruption and lawlessness of the ruling parties, it is also necessary to fight against the centers of interest within the party. If the party cannot solve this problem within its own structure, it should be the duty of every patriot to convey what is known in a way that will force the party administration and insist that this cleaning be done!