Turkey Update –Oath-Taking Ceremony & more– 6th June 2023

Merhaba from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Turkey Update from the 6th of June A quick summary of what's going down in Turkey.

On Friday the 2nd of June, the Parliament started its 28th term and held its traditional oath-taking ceremony. Recall that it was called into question whether the members of the Free Cause Party, or HüdaPar, would take the oath as it conflicted with their ideology, Islamist Kurdish nationalism. However, all four of the party’s members took the oath without any incident. Only one person had to retake the oath, Osman Gökçek, a member of the ruling Justice and Development party, and the son of Melih Gökçek the former mayor of Ankara who’s accused of corruption. He misread the oath, and had to read it again in front of the parliament.

President Erdoğan was also there, but his swearing-in took place on Saturday the 3rd. When Erdoğan arrived at the parliament to watch the members' swearing-in ceremony, the parliament got up to applaud and greet him. However, the members of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, the Good Party and the People’s Democratic Party, or HDP protested against him by not standing up.

Speaking of the opposition…

The Good Party, a member of the main opposition, the Nation’s alliance, announced that the alliance has broken off now that the election is over. The Alliance had six members: the Good Party, the CHP, the Democrat Party, the Felicity Party, the Democracy and Progress Party and the Future Party.

On Saturday the 3rd, President Erdoğan revealed the new cabinet members. He renewed all of the ministers, except for the minister of health and minister of culture and tourism. After taking office, Mehmet Şimşek, the new minister of finance, stated that Turkey has no choice but to return to more traditional economic models, as opposed to Erdoğan’s unorthodox theories.

Sinan Oğan, the former presidential candidate who supported Erdoğan in the election runoff, said that one of his conditions for supporting him was dropping Erdoğan’s theory that high inflation was the result of high interest.

More on the economy,

Following Erdoğan’s election win, the value of the Turkish Lira has dropped to over twenty-one liras per US Dollar. Just a week prior, it was around nineteen liras per dollar.

Phillip Morris, one of the major cigarette companies in the country, announced that starting from Monday the 5th, it would increase the price of a pack of cigarettes by five liras, or a little over twenty US cents. Later on Monday, other cigarette companies, JTI and BAT, followed suit with the price increase.

Back to the Free Cause Party…

It turns out Ali Yüksel, one of HüdaPar’s parliament members, had three wives. He officially has one wife. However, he apparently married two other women through a religious ceremony. There was controversy already about having an Islamist in the parliament, and now there’s backlash because the Parliament harbors a person who acted against the constitution, which doesn’t recognize religious marriages and polygamy.

Moving on…

On Thursday the 1st, the Supreme Election Board released President Erdoğan’s wealth in the Official Gazette. Erdoğan merely has 1.8 Million Liras, or eighty-four thousand US Dollars, and is five million liras, or 235 thousand dollars, in debt. This called into question the idea that Erdoğan was swimming in cash.

Let’s go back to the new parliament members for a moment…

Can Atalay, who is sentenced to eighteen years in prison for aiding an attempt to overthrow the government during the Gezi protests, was elected as a Parliament member from the Workers Party of Turkey in the elections. Atalay is currently in prison, but there's no final judgment. By becoming a parliament member, he was supposed to get legislative immunity and get released from jail. However, he still remains in prison, and missed the swearing-in ceremony.

The constitution states that a person will only be exempt from legislative immunity if they are convicted of crimes that violate the integrity of the state. So there’s a chance that, if there’s a final judgment, he may not receive immunity.

Let’s move on to education…

The İzmir Provincial Directorate of Education and the Religious Affairs Directorate signed a joint protocol. In line with this, the education directorate has started appointing religious counselors, Quran instructors and preachers, to public schools, in order to raise students who ‘adopt and protect the national, religious, moral, humanitarian and cultural values with a sound mind, heart, and taste.’ So far, the directorate has appointed religious service staff in over 800 schools.

The joint protocol was called into question, as it may be a violation of the secular education model Turkey has. The public said appointing staff that doesn’t have pedagogical formation was against the law. They pointed out that schools already have guidance counselors and religious studies teachers that do the same job, and that the directorate was trying to force religion onto children.

More on education…

The Istanbul governor allocated over 200 schools in the city to the Turkey Youth Foundation, an Islamist foundation known for its close ties with the President, for a summer school project. The foundation will use the schools’ amenities for its workshops, and reportedly, the schools will also encourage its parents to sign the students up for the summer school.

On Monday the 5th, Erdoğan appointed his former spokesperson, İbrahim Kalın, as the chief of the National Intelligence Agency. Upon Erdoğan announcing this, Ümit Özdağ, an opposition figure, jokingly said that he wished Erdoğan never quit football, and Kalın never quit playing folk music, implying that if they followed their passions, they’d be happy, and the country would be happier without them.

Let’s talk about the opposition now,

On Thursday the 1st, all of the members of the CHP’s Central Executive Board resigned following Kılıçdaroğlu’s loss in the presidential elections. It came into question whether Kılıçdaroğlu would resign too, but so far he hasn’t said anything about that. .

On Tuesday the 6th, The President visited Anıtkabir, the resting place of Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, along with the new cabinet. It was unexpected, as Erdoğan consistently skipped visits to Anıtkabir at every national holiday.

Let’s talk about what’s happening in the earthquake zone

Because of the earthquake, public transportation has been free in the earthquake-zone. However, as of this week, public transportation is returning to its normal tariffs.

More on the earthquake zone…

Earthquake victims have been sharing their excessive household bills on social media. Back in the first weeks of the earthquake, the government postponed the household bills for three months so as not to burden the victims. However, now they started receiving bills and the amount is in the thousands. They said that there was no way three months of electricity would amount up to as much as the bill suggested. The victims said that they’d take it to the court and appeal against it.

Aaaand that's it for this week. You know every week we work hard to pick what the most important stuff is in Turkey. What's talked about the most, what's big but flies under the radar. All the main stuff. Are we getting the mix right? Not a specific thing we have missed? what types of information do you want more or less of? Let us know at turkey@rorshok.com