Changes to the Central Executive Committee & more – 14th Nov 2023

Merhaba from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Turkey Update from the 14th of November twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Turkey.

On Saturday the 11th, the main opposition Republican People's Party, or CHP, had its first party assembly following its 38th Ordinary Congress, where the party had a leadership change. Özgür Özel, the new head of the party, announced the new Central Executive Committee members. He also stated some changes he made to the Committee altogether. The Board will have twenty-four members. Within the Central Executive Committee, the party established a Shadow Cabinet. The Cabinet consists of seventeen people for all seventeen ministries. It monitors the work and shortcomings of the ministries in the government. The rest of the committee members will deal with administrative affairs.

Özel emphasized that the party had to keep the average age of the cabinet young to promote new views that align with the state of the world in this decade. The age average of the current committee is forty-six. He also pointed out that the party should ensure that there were the same number of women and men in the cabinet.

In unrelated news, Friday the 10th marked the 85th anniversary of the death of Atatürk, Turkey’s founding father. It’s a nationwide day of mourning and many commemorated Atatürk on this day. Schools and government organs lowered the Turkish flags on their establishments. Many also held a moment of silence at 9:05 AM, when it was announced that Atatürk was dead.

However, the Religious Affairs Directorate, a state-run institution that Atatürk established himself, didn’t commemorate him. For the past thirteen years, since the current head of the Directorate came to office, the Directorate has never mentioned Atatürk in Friday sermons that fall on or around national holidays or on the 10th of November. This year was no different. This was called into question as it was accused of trying to erase Atatürk’s memory.

The Religious Affairs Directorate isn’t the only government body facing criticism…

During a ministry budgeting meeting, Fahrettin Koca, the health minister, answered some questions about the health sector. When asked about doctors leaving the country to work abroad, he rubbed his fingers together to suggest that doctors were leaving Turkey because they would earn more money in foreign countries. He added that it wasn’t because of ‘them’— meaning the government. Of course, his behavior was called into question. The president told the ministry to ‘let the doctors go’, saying that they were easily replaceable. Now, Turkey has the lowest doctor-to-patient ratio in all of Europe.

Now the Constitutional Court vs Court of Cassation

Recall that the two courts have been having a power struggle. Last week, Turkey's top appeals court, the Court of Cassation, accused the Constitutional Court of exceeding its authority and undermining the legal system. This came after the Constitutional Court ordered the release of imprisoned Can Atalay, the MP for the Workers’ Party, ruling that his rights had been violated. Since then, the Court of Cassation refused to comply with the Constitutional Court's verdict and filed a criminal complaint against the Constitutional Court justices who voted for Atalay's release.

Legal experts and the opposition have condemned the move as a "judicial coup" and a "coup attempt against the constitutional order." They pointed out that the Constitution says that the decisions the Constitutional Court makes are final and binding on all branches of government, individuals, and legal entities. On the other hand, President Erdoğan and his allies said this ‘judicial crisis’ shows the need for a new constitution.

Onto politics…

On Friday the 10th, Bahadır Erdem and Durmuş Yılmaz, senior members of the Good Party, a nationalistic opposition group, resigned from the party. This gained public attention, as the party has been taking some controversial steps recently, like yielding mayoral candidates in every city in the upcoming elections.

About the resignation, Erdem said that he didn’t approve of the party nominating candidates in every town since the party doesn’t have enough voters to win most of the cities.

Some news on the devastating February earthquakes…

Mehmet Özat, the contractor of one of the buildings that fell apart in the earthquake, fled the city after the collapse to avoid arrest. He was responsible for the death of almost 400 people. The police had been looking for him for the last nine months, but now the search is over. Sinem Boyacı, a relative of nine people who lost their lives in the collapse, spotted Özat in a shopping mall in the city of Ankara. She confronted him and called the police. She made sure Özat didn’t escape till the police came. Now, Özat is under arrest and has been charged with manslaughter. Hopefully, the families can now have some closure.

Next up, corruption.

The Investigation Board of the İstanbul Municipality, run by the CHP, revealed its investigation reports on the corruption cases tied to the previous administration of the municipality, in the hands of the ruling Justice and Development Party, Back in twenty twenty, the Interior Ministry took over of more than thirty of these cases after the CHP won the mayoral elections and the municipality changed its leadership. The CHP Municipality launched an investigation and found out that instead of looking into the cases, the ministry covered up the corruption in five cases. Reportedly, the municipality lost over thirty billion liras, around 1.5 billion US Dollars, in these five cases alone.

On that note…

The New York Times reported that the FBI is investigating the mayor of New York City for allegedly pressuring the city’s fire department to approve the opening of the Turkish House skyscraper despite safety concerns back in twenty twenty-one. The Turkish House is like a business center for Turkish diplomatic missions, including the Turkish Consulate General. The skyscraper is located in one of the most high-demand areas of the city, making it very expensive. It has received a lot of backlash for its cost in the past years. There were also allegations of corruption in its construction. However, nothing concrete had surfaced.

The water levels in Çanakkale’s Atıkhisar Dam, the only drinking and irrigation water supply of the city, have dropped below 35%. Back in March, the municipality authorities had implemented some restrictions on water usage to prevent a possible drought. They planned to lift the restrictions at the end of October. However, the water levels haven’t improved. So, they announced that the restrictions would remain in place till the end of twenty twenty-three. So, till the 31st of December, the municipality won’t let people use a hose to wash the streets, cars and carpets. There’s still a limit to water consumption in auto wash and carpet washing businesses, which is twenty cubic meters.

To check out the full list of measures in Turkish, follow the link in the show notes..

Moving on, Antalya, the country's tourist hub, has been losing its foreign residents. Reports say that in twenty twenty-three, 16% of foreign residents have left Antalya due to rising costs of living. This especially escalated in the last few months, with over seventeen thousand foreigners leaving the city.

And to close this edition, The Izmir Municipality has announced that it will open a chain of affordable coffee shops called "İzmirli Kahve." The shops will offer coffee, tea, and other beverages at, reportedly, half the price of other chain coffee shops.

And that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us! Before we leave, we wanted to thank everyone who has been listening to us, and welcome all the new subscribers! We are happy the Rorshok Turkeyl community is growing!

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