Zeydan Karalar, the CHP mayor of Adana Metropolitan Municipality, said that the ‘normalization’ policy his party had been pursuing for some time had benefited the ruling party but not the CHP, and that these policies were abandoned once this became apparent.
Adana Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Zeydan Karalar announced that the CHP’s ‘normalization’ policy has come to an end:
📌”We paved the way for the government to set policy. Now we’ve reached the point where we’re setting policy again.” pic.twitter.com/43jw06hQV5
- Halkweb (@Halkweb) December 4, 2024
Zeydan Karalar appeared as a guest on Halk TV with İsmail Küçükkaya. Answering questions about current issues, Karalar responded to claims that signatures were being collected for an extraordinary convention by saying, “If something like that were happening, they would have come to me.”.
“We paved the way for them to take power”
Zeydan Karalar, noting that the debates at the convention stemmed from the ‘normalization’ policies initiated by Özgür Özel and that there had been some criticism from the party base, said:
“We are the Republican People’s Party. We have our own views, ideals, and goals. We have a duty to explain this to the public. At one point, it seemed as though we had paved the way for the ruling party to set the political agenda. Now we have reached that point again. Our party leader made a well-intentioned effort to bring relief to Turkey, but when we saw that it did not serve our interests and was being exploited by the current political administration, we took a different approach.”
Özel had said, “I came up with the name; the normalization process is ongoing.”
Although Zeydan Karalar said that ‘this has been abandoned,’ there has been no statement from the CHP leadership indicating that the ‘normalization’ policies have been abandoned.
During a meeting with journalists in Ankara last month, Özgür Özel responded to the question, “Has the normalization process come to an end?” as follows:
“I’m the one who coined the term ”normalization.’ People are attaching all sorts of meanings to the word ‘normalization’ on social media, here and there. It’s all lies and nonsense. They’re exploiting it. There’s only one thing I’ve failed to do. I refrain from hurling insults or slander at Erdoğan or Mr. Bahçeli—or using language that wouldn’t be uttered even in a street brawl—and from doing anything that would shake this nation’s trust in its political institutions or tarnish the reputation of politics. I’ve never considered such behavior appropriate. That’s why, when it comes to the question of whether normalization is over, I say it’s not over—it’s still ongoing.”