TKP asks: Why does the Republican People’s Party (CHP) enter the elections?

THE VOICE OF TKP - Issue 2

NOONE CAN BE PATCH ON THE JUSTICE AND DEVELOPMENT PARTY (AKP) WITHIN THE CURRENT SYSTEM

1. While summoning the citizens to vote for AKP by saying “the projects of local governments are authorized by the central government, and then the central government finances these”, AKP acts immorally, but points out a fact as well: law, justice and equality have totally been abandoned in Turkey. Unless a new social order based on law, justice and equality is established, immense obstacles before developing policies for the benefit of the people in local governments cannot be eliminated.

2. Local governments delegate almost all of their services to either private corporations or companies formed within the body of municipalities. In other words, certain individuals and establishments make large profits from activities that should have been conducted for public benefit. The fundamental interest of the firms participating in the tenders issued by municipalities for services and infrastructural work is the profits they will derive. As this procedure goes on, both public funds are used for the enrichment of certain persons and facts such as fraud, corruption and infraction of rules become inevitable.

3. The usual outcome of the message, “generate your own funds”, sent by the central government to local authorities is the latter’s increasing borrowing from domestic and foreign financial monopolies. In Turkey, financing infrastructural investments by usurious credits has become a rule. These extremely high interest rates are paid out of the pocket of the people.

4. As the municipal services are carried out through market rules, workers are condemned to low-wage work under the rule of subcontracting, nonunion and insecure work.

5. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which seek to rule local governments today, fully adopt market rules also. Therefore, one cannot understand why these parties oppose to AKP’s perception of municipal work. If the current system will prevail, then AKP has already proven that it is much more competent than the others. For instance Melih Gökçek, the present mayor of Ankara from AKP, is a more competent proponent of market-oriented policies than Murat Karayalçın, the candidate of CHP for Ankara mayoralty. If the mechanisms of indebtedness through tenders and credits will prevail and municipalities will continue to be seen as a mean of extracting rents, as it is also supported by CHP, then why does Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the candidate of CHP in Istanbul, oppose to the mayoralty of Kadir Topbaş, the present mayor of Istanbul from AKP?

6. TKP asserts to disenthrall local governments from “market rules”, for TKP claims to liberate Turkey from the current market-oriented political order, i.e. from the system that creates unemployment, indebtedness, political and economic dependence and grave inequalities. That is why TKP says STOP THEM and that is why TKP asks for VOTES. This is the only alternative to AKP-style municipal work. What CHP has been doing just amounts to deceiving and cheating our people once again.

7. In the March 29 local elections, the Communist Party of Turkey is the only party that provides a real choice against the unjust system.

Communist Party of Turkey
Political Bureau