For five days, Turkey has been talking about the footage of U\u015fak Mayor \u00d6zkan Yal\u0131m being detained in his hotel room.<\/p>\n
What is interesting is that even Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu's detention process did not create such a sensational impact.<\/p>\n
The alleged affair between the mayor and the 21-year-old young woman found in the hotel room, who works for the municipality, has overtaken even the main subject of the investigation.<\/p>\n
Immediately after the incident, the CHP U\u015fak Provincial Organization's provincial chairman and administration, women's branches and youth branches sent messages of support, which led to discussions on the issue from different angles. Meanwhile, the statements of the chairman \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel, the headquarters administration and the chairwoman of the women's branches created a separate topic of discussion. Finally, the controversial disciplinary decision taken by the MYK was like the salt and pepper of this process.<\/p>\n
When we look at all these developments as a whole, the fact that the institutional capacity of the Republican People's Party is insufficient to manage intra-party crises has once again emerged.<\/p>\n
Of course, much has been said and will continue to be said about the detention of the mayor of U\u015fak and what happened afterwards. However, I would like to address this issue from a different perspective.<\/p>\n
Indeed, an aspect of this alleged immoral relationship that extends to Bornova Municipality has also emerged.<\/p>\n
The mayor of U\u015fak allegedly placed his 21-year-old girlfriend in a job at Bornova Municipality; however, it was found out that this person received a salary from the municipality without actually going to work or even living in Izmir.<\/p>\n
After this situation came to light, \u00d6mer E\u015fki, the Mayor of Bornova, acknowledged that public damage had occurred and announced that he would personally compensate for this damage.<\/p>\n
But there is a critical legal fact here:<\/p>\n
\u201cA statement such as \u201dI will cover the resulting public loss out of my own pocket\u201c is a clear admission of misconduct. This statement indirectly means \u201dI did this unlawful act\".<\/p>\n
But will personal compensation for public damages solve the problem?<\/p>\n
Of course it does not.<\/p>\n
This is because the elimination of public damage does not eliminate the legal and criminal responsibility for the act committed.<\/p>\n
What should be done in this situation?<\/p>\n
As a matter of ethical responsibility, Bornova Mayor \u00d6mer E\u015fki should first resign from his position as mayor and then from his party membership. In addition, a criminal investigation should be initiated immediately in terms of the legal dimension of the incident; if he does not resign, he should be suspended from office through administrative action within the framework of the relevant legislation.<\/p>\n
This is because the act in question here is not a simple administrative error. It is a conscious and voluntary misuse of public resources. This situation clearly constitutes a violation of the Public Financial Management and Control Law No. 5018.<\/p>\n
Indeed, Article 8 of the Law regulates \u201caccountability\u201d as follows:<\/p>\n
\u201cThose who are in charge and authorized in the acquisition and use of all kinds of public resources are responsible for the effective, economical, efficient and lawful acquisition, use, accounting, reporting and taking the necessary measures to prevent misuse of resources and must account to the competent authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
And where is this \u201ccompetent authority\u201d?<\/p>\n
Article 11 of the same Law gives a clear answer to this question: The top executive in municipalities is the Mayor, and the Mayor is accountable to the Municipal Assembly as part of this responsibility.<\/p>\n
However, the issue is not limited to civil liability.<\/p>\n
In addition to their obligations under Law No. 5018, mayors are politically accountable to their parties, democratically accountable to their constituents and, most importantly, conscientiously accountable to society.<\/p>\n
To claim that the investigative processes in which the Republican People's Party finds itself are based on coincidental events or on the political attitude of the party in sole power against the opposition is to lose sight of reality. In fact, the root of the problem should be sought in the undemocratic process of determining mayoral candidates.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, in the critical processes of nominating candidates, the party has not been successful enough in identifying candidates who can fulfill their duties with merit, who have a public administration awareness and are aware of their legal responsibilities, in accordance with the principles of internal party democracy. The candidate nomination mechanism has often turned into a bargaining ground driven by political affinities, intra-party balances and mutual calculations.<\/p>\n
However, local governments are institutions that should be run not by political loyalty but by knowledge, competence and mastery of public administration discipline.<\/p>\n
If you ask many mayors in office today a basic question about the Public Procurement Law No. 4734, the Public Procurement Contracts Law No. 4735, the State Procurement Law No. 2886 and the Public Financial Management and Control Law No. 5018, the answer you will receive will clearly reveal the gravity of the issue.<\/p>\n
Most mayors are either not familiar with this legislation or, even if they are, they have not studied these texts with the seriousness required for implementation.<\/p>\n
However, these laws constitute the direct legal basis for the daily administrative actions of mayors. Performing duties without knowing the content of these legislations brings not only the risk of administrative error, but also criminal liability. For example, saying \u201cTanju \u00d6zcan gave scholarships to students with the money he collected, what crime did he commit?\u201c or associating the foundation established by the Mayor of Bursa Metropolitan Municipality with his family with businessmen and the municipality is exactly what I mean. If you collect donations under the pretext of scholarships without recognizing and accepting extortion as a crime, you will suffer the consequences.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, it is a problem of mentality combined with a lack of legislative knowledge. The political understanding that sees the municipality not as a public institution but as a structure belonging to its party leads to diversion of public resources from their intended purpose, arbitrary practices and ultimately systematic errors.<\/p>\n
Therefore, it is inevitable that mayors who do not know the legislation, do not act in accordance with the law and have not internalized corporate responsibility will make mistakes and fail.<\/p>\n
In conclusion, the problem is structural, not individual. And unless this structure changes, similar crises are inevitable.<\/p>\n
Unless politics is purged of those who use public resources for their personal interests, neither a sense of justice can be established in society nor social welfare can be made permanent.<\/p>\n
When public power becomes a tool for private interests, it not only leads to economic losses, but also undermines the legitimacy of the state and deeply undermines citizens' trust in the state.<\/p>\n
Therefore, the issue is not only a matter of fighting corruption and cannot be solved only through criminal investigations. It is imperative for the Republican People's Party to adopt a management approach based on transparency, accountability and merit, especially in local governments, and to prefer candidates who know the legislation and have internalized these principles.<\/p>\n
Otherwise, politics for the Republican People's Party will cease to be a mechanism that produces solutions on behalf of society and will turn into a structure that protects the interests of a narrow group of people.<\/p>\n
The situation that the Republican People's Party finds itself in today is nothing other than this.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In fact, the root of the problem lies in the undemocratic process of nominating mayoral candidates.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":284552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[286],"tags":[15,289],"class_list":{"0":"post-284550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-yazarlar","8":"tag-chp","9":"tag-manset"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284550"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284553,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284550\/revisions\/284553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/halkweb.com.tr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}