The leader of the main opposition party has blasted President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for allegedly pursuing personal gains rather than serving the nation, once again calling him a "tinpot dictator."
“I know quite well that this tinpot dictator is heartless,” Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), claimed on Tuesday, arguing that Erdoğan is mainly focused on increasing his own wealth.
“If it is personal gains that motivate the leader of a country, then that leader is no good for the country,” said the CHP leader, maintaining that Erdoğan is insensitive about the many difficulties the nation faces.
Erdoğan sued Kılıçdaroğlu for libel when the CHP leader called him a tinpot dictator at the party's congress earlier this month. Before Erdoğan took the issue to court, the Ankara Chief Prosecutor's Office also launched an investigation into the main opposition leader.
The CHP leader maintained that Turkish society has become more and more entangled in problems as well as having become corrupt during the rule of the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), putting the blame on the government.
“My heart is aching because of how my country is looking, because of the fighting, just like in the civil wars in Syria and Iraq, because our children are dying,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.
There has been heavy fighting against terrorists for more than a month in some towns in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast.
Diyarbakır's central Sur district and Şırnak province's Cizre and Silopi districts have been under curfew since Dec. 2 and Dec. 14, respectively, due to fighting.
Kılıçdaroğlu also claimed that the president frequently resorts to lying. He cited the example of previously being falsely accused by Erdoğan of having bankrupted Turkey's Social Security Institution (SGK) while the CHP leader served as its director.
Noting that his work as SGK director was closely audited by inspectors after Erdoğan had first uttered the claim, Kılıçdaroğlu said he had come out clean.
The amount of money the SGK used during his term as director is nothing compared with the money transferred to the social security institution by the AK Party during its 13-year-long term in power, the CHP leader said.
“I would not usurp what is due to others, but you indulge in it! I know that quite well,” said Kılıçdaroğlu, implicitly referring to the massive corruption in which Erdoğan is claimed to have been involved.
Findings in the two sweeping graft probes that went public in December 2013 indicated that Erdoğan was involved in government corruption as the top figure. At the time, Erdoğan headed the AK Party government.
The CHP leader admitted that it is not proper to call a president a tinpot dictator but said he is doing so to protect the citizens, the morals of the nation and the rule of law against Erdoğan, whom he called corrupt and who violates the law.
Kılıçdaroğlu challengingly said in his address at the party's parliamentary group meeting, “Either Erdoğan will [start to] act within the boundaries of the powers specified in the Constitution, remains impartial, or I will continue to criticize him.”
Erdoğan, who was elected president in 2014, has been much criticized by the opposition for openly favoring the AK Party as president in violation of the constitution, which requires a president to be impartial.
Before taking office, a president takes an oath to act in line with the Constitution.
Accusing Erdoğan of violating this oath and thereby serving as a bad role model for the whole society, the CHP leader said, “Somebody must remind you what morals and honor are.”
He also argued that the failure of a president to comply with his oath would serve to increase moral corruption in the society.
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