MP Dies in Parliament & more – 19th Dec 2023

Merhaba from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Turkey Update from the 19th of December twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what's going down in Turkey.

On Thursday the 14th, Hasan Bitmez, an MP from the opposition Felicity Party, passed away. He suffered a heart attack on Tuesday the 12th while speaking in the parliamentary budget negotiations. Bitmez collapsed after finishing his speech. He was intubated and transported to Ankara Bilkent City Hospital, where he was placed in the intensive care unit. Unfortunately, he didn't make it.

Following this incident, the number of members of the Felicity Party and its ally, the Future Party, dropped below twenty. In the parliament, even if you enter through a party list, having fewer than twenty members means you're considered an individual, not a group. As an individual, you get less speaking time in hearings and fewer privileges, such as reduced funding, and fewer perks like cars.

Because of this rule, the group fell through. However, on Saturday the 16th, Ali Fazıl Kasap, an MP from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, joined the Felicity Party to support their parliamentary group during budget hearings.

Gökhan Günaydın, CHP’s Group Deputy Chair, emphasized that Kasap's switch aimed to prevent the restriction of the opposition's voice, allowing the genuine concerns of the people to be openly expressed in Parliament. Günaydın called for support from other parties to ensure the continued representation of the opposition's perspective.

The question by Hafize Gaye Erkan, the head of the Central Bank, "How could Istanbul be more expensive than Manhattan?" might sum up the housing problem in the country. In a recent interview, she revealed that she moved in with her mother because of the high rents in İstanbul, despite her high-ranking position with a monthly income of around 300 thousand liras, or ten thousand US Dollars. Her statements raised a significant question: if top-ranking officials in the country are struggling with economic challenges, what options do minimum wage earners have with just eleven thousand liras, or 400 US Dollars?

Some international news…

On Thursday the 14th, the German interior ministry announced that it had reached an agreement with Turkey to pull out of a program that assigns Turkish imams to mosques in Germany. Under this arrangement, Germany will train around a hundred imams each year. The German Interior Minister said in a statement that it was important to have clerics who speak the local language, understand the country, and uphold its values. She added that this agreement was a crucial move for integrating and empowering German Muslims.

Back to the CHP…

Ekrem İmamoğlu, CHP’s İstanbul mayor, recently got acquitted for the second time in a case against him regarding a district mayor from the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP. He was charged with publicly insulting a public official as he targeted the mayor of Tuzla district during one of his rallies. İmamoğlu had reportedly said that the mayor was at the rally to disturb the peace and that he was provoking the public. The prosecutor on the case argued that İmamoğlu didn’t act like a statesman and provoked the public against the Tuzla mayor. Still, the mayor of Istanbul got away with it. However, the Tuzla mayor objected to the acquittal. However, in the second trial, the court acquitted İmamoğlu once again.

On Saturday the 16th, security personnel at Trabzon Airport reportedly attacked four construction workers who were speaking in Kurdish. The workers, involved in the airport's expansion project, sustained light injuries and subsequently filed a criminal complaint. The incident happened after a security officer prohibited them from speaking Kurdish, their mother tongue. When they continued speaking, the guard, along with twenty other people, attacked them. Police had to intervene. The workers called it an attempt at lynching and said that they should be free to speak their mother tongue in their own country. They added that a British person could speak English and a Frenchman could speak French when they were in Turkey, but they were not allowed to speak their mother tongue. Reportedly, airport personnel requested to have the Kurdish workers dismissed from their posts, instead of the attackers. Despite pressure from airport officials, the contractor refused to dismiss the workers.

On Saturday the 16th, Vecdin Ensarioğlu, the head of the nationalistic Good Party in Diyarbakır, shared that he and over thirteen thousand members of the Diyarbakır branch, including district heads, resigned from the party. This decision came after lawmaker Salim Ensarioğlu left the party.

The issue started when Diyarbakır's mayor named a street after Şeyh Said, a controversial Kurdish figure who was executed in the nineteen twenties for leading an Islamist and Kurdish rebellion against the secular republic.

In response to the road naming controversy, Salim Ensarioğlu , a Good Party Istanbul MP, surprisingly rejected such accusations against Şeyh Said, calling him a valuable regional figure. He also pointed out that the party should commit to respecting all societal values and preventing social polarization. His remarks came as a surprise, as ultranationalists like the Good Party usually view Şeyh Said as a terrorist.

On Tuesday the 12th, the Good Party took action against Salim for praising Şeyh Said; and he later resigned himself.

Vecdin explained that after the incident, they felt unwelcome in the party after criticizing the party's handling of different opinions.

Some sad news…

Mesopotamia News Agency reported that the workers cleaning the debris from the February earthquakes in Adıyaman are dumping the rubble in the Karapınar Cemetery, where many earthquake victims rest. Initially, they were dumping the rubble in a stream bed near the cemetery, but as the stream filled up, they began dumping it in the cemetery.

Understandably, this has stirred emotions among those visiting their loved ones. Alican Yılmaz, who lost twenty-five relatives in the quakes, expressed that he was reliving the earthquake all over again. It's painful for relatives to know that the rubble from the very buildings where their relatives perished now lies next to their final resting places.

After months of discussions with NATO allies, the Defense Minister announced on Saturday the 16th that Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania will work together to clear the mines floating in the Black Sea as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian war. Reportedly, the three countries will sign an initiative in early January twenty twenty-four.

According to Ernst & Young's Global IPO Trends report, in twenty twenty-three, Borsa İstanbul, Turkey’s stock market, ranked 11th globally in terms of the number of initial public offerings or IPO and 10th when it came to the size of offerings. In an IPO, a private company sells its shares to the public. Turkey's IPOs reached three billion dollars in twenty twenty-three, and the companies that went public performed well in the stock market. Despite a global decline in IPOs compared to twenty twenty-two, all Turkish companies experienced peak returns on the first day, and maintained their value in the following weeks as well.

A lot of people in the country apply to IPOs to earn quick cash and it’s become a sort of a trend in the country, especially among young adults.