Dilek Bozkurt/ HALKWEB Mayor of Uşak Municipality Ozkan Yalım’s detention in a hotel in Ankara with a young woman, a municipality employee, as part of a bribery operation caused outrage. Journalist Ruşen Çakir, drew attention to the ethical dimension of the incident and spoke harshly: “There is a relationship of domination here, we cannot ignore it because it is ‘opposition’!”
In a bribery operation centered in Uşak, Ankara and Kocaeli, 11 people, including Uşak Mayor Özkan Yalım, were detained. However, as much as the bribery allegations of the operation, the images of Mayor Yalım being detained in a hotel in Ankara together with a 21-year-old municipality employee made a mark on the agenda.
“Those who say let's leave the opposition in the dust will be uncomfortable, but I don't care”
Commenting on the scandal, journalist Ruşen Çakır emphasized that this situation is unacceptable regardless of political affiliation. Çakır criticized the opposition's tendency to remain silent and said the following:
”Those who say let's ignore the opposition will be offended by my words, but I don't care at all. There is something very wrong with the Özkan Yalım affair. A mayor cannot be with a municipality employee who is not even half his age.”
”This is not a relationship of the heart, it is a relationship of domination”
Çakır drew attention to the age difference between the mayor and his staff and the power of office, stating that the situation cannot be evaluated only in the context of private life:
“There is a relationship of domination here. As a mayor, you cannot approach a young woman, your own employee. This applies not only to the mayor, but to every profession. If she does what she wants with someone else elsewhere, that may be none of my business; but if it is your own employee, the situation is different. This cannot be looked at with the simplicity of ‘two hearts have become one’. There is a power relationship here.”.
