Muharrem İnce removes party rosette in his bid for presidency

CHP General Chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu announced the CHP’s presidential candidate at the Ahmet Taner Kışlalı sports salon. Kılıçdaroğlu summoned CHP Yalova MP Muharrem İnce to the rostrum and announced his candidacy. İnce removed his CHP rosette and surrendered it to Kılıçdaroğlu and said he would be an independent president. Kılıçdaroğlu pinned on a flag rosette in place of the party rosette he took from İnce.

 KILIÇDAROĞLU: TODAY WE ARE AT A PARTING OF THE WAYS

 Kılıçdaroğlu came to the rostrum and a summary follows of the brief speech he made:

 Today we are at a parting of the ways. We want to make alliances with political parties. We want to put an end to polarisation in this country. We want there to be no making of politics over faith, over life styles and over identity. To this end, we want to make the widest alliance. We want to make an alliance to develop the culture of democracy. Following 20 July, there has remained no safety of life and property for anybody because there is no independent judiciary. The judicial hierarchy has collapsed. Prisons are packed full and it is unclear who is guilty and who is innocent. Flowers will open on the mountains on 25 June.

 Let everyone go and check their electoral record. Let nobody go on holiday on 25 June and let us go to the polls in a fair-like atmosphere.

 We have five basic problems. The first is that democracy and the national will is mortgaged.

 Let nobody use the military and establish tutelage over democracy.

 We want to live in peace with all our neighbours and the whole world.

 Social peace has been dynamited and we have started to query our neighbour’s identity.

 The economy’s nail has come out and the dollar is uncontrollable. The current rulers have been collared by usurers.

 Mothers and fathers do not know which school children will go to. We must raise generations with free ideas and free consciences.

 We will soon also announce our electoral manifesto. Let them continue to copy. You can’t be a politician from copying, you can at most be fraudulent from copying.

 On 25 June, flowers will open, not just in Izmir, but on all mountains.

 Following Kılıçdaroğlu’s speech, he summoned Muharrem İnce to the rostrum and announced his candidacy.

 MUHARREM İNCE SURRENDERED HIS CHP ROSETTE TO KILIÇDAROĞLU

 Muharrem İnce came to the rostrum, said, “I will be presidential candidate with God’s permission and the people’s will. I will be the candidate of the eighty million, of supporters of the AK Party, HDP and MHP, of right-wingers and left-wingers. I will be an independent president” and took of his CHP rosette and surrendered it to Kılıçdaroğlu. Kılıçdaroğlu then pinned a rosette with the Turkish flag on Muharrem İnce.

 MUHARREM İNCE: THE INTERREGNUM PERIOD ENDS ON 24 JUNE

 İnce continued his speech as follows:

 No benefit will come to this people from a person who thinks of nothing else but himself. Take a good look at these two party chairs. Who is thinking about their own children and who is thinking about this nation’s children? Turkey has undergone periods of interregnum like in 1402. The interregnum period ends on 24 June.

 There can be no Republican People’s Party presidential candidate. The president is single. He now says to me, “Is your experience adequate to govern the state?” Looking at experience, if we went to the army, I’d be a sergeant and he’d be a corporal. I’m higher ranking than him in politics.

 “I AM READY TO EXHIBIT MY DIPLOMA”

 He has attended countless sessions of parliament. I am an honourable member of parliament who voted in parliament on 1 March. I remember the first day Mr Erdoğan came to parliament. He didn’t even know how to vote.

 If matters turn to diplomas, I am also ready to exhibit my eight-term transcript.

I expect us to discuss the economy, to discuss education and to discuss agriculture in the rally grounds. If, instead of this, they are going to try to besmirch me, I will trump them at it. They tell me, “You couldn’t become CHP general chair. Are you to become president for Turkey?” Tayyip Erdoğan couldn’t become mayor for Beyoğlu and became president for Turkey. Am I unable to become president?

 We have two concerns. To get 51% and, secondly, to rule 100% impartially. Regardless of where terrorism comes from, be it FETO or be it the PKK, I will intervene.

 “TURKEY HAS NEVER NEEDED THE CHP THIS MUCH UNTIL TODAY”

 İnce, saying, “I was fifteen years old when I made the acquaintance of Ahmet Arif in Diyarbakır, read the poem “Do you know?” and said, “I am filled with the same enthusiasm at the age of 54.” Turkey has never needed the CHP so much.

 Today is my birthday. I have put 54 years behind me. I will continue my life from now on as a mortal devoted to my own people and nation.

 STAGED A STANDING OVATION FOR KILIÇDAROĞLU

 I convey my gratitude to our war fallen and heroes, most of all War Hero Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. I greet my people who are sick of dispute and malice and are consumed with concerns for their work, livelihood and children. I thank his excellency our General Chair before our nation for the contributions he has made to our party and country. I give our General Chair Kılıçdaroğlu a standing ovation for having staged the “Justice March” and leaving a mark in history. Not everyone could be man enough to make a person who opposes him into a presidential candidate.

 “THE AKP-FETO PARTNERSHIP HAS TAKEN THE REPUBLIC OFF COURSE”

 The entire auditorium gave Kılıçdaroğlu a standing ovation.

 We will reclaim our future. Our duty is to turn on the light. Our concern is not conflict; our concern is solving problems. The AKP-FETO partnership has taken the Republic off course. The Constitutional Court has tossed the Constitution to one side. The judiciary is under the chain of command. Trolls are creating lies and dispensing filth. Our young people, our smart youngsters, are leaving the country. Their children do shortened military service through payment, but there are also children of ours who pay the price while doing their military service.

I call out to you, brothers. Look, I will tell you what kind of president I will be. There are pupils of mine who have become doctors and have become engineers. I think that I have done my share towards all of them and feel pride in them all. In giving marks, I would read the paper without seeing the name. This is how my teachers taught me. What did they do? They had university papers stolen. I call out to youngsters. I will not have this done.

“WE WILL NOT ALLOW THE STEALING OF VOTES AT THE BALLOT BOX, EXAM QUESTIONS OR MONEY FROM THE TREASURY”

 This country’s valued lawyers, keep your fifty thousand lawyers’ robes in your cars on 24 June. I may summon you at any moment to the front of the Supreme Election Council. Be ready. We will not allow the stealing of votes at the ballot box, exam questions or money from the treasury.

 Shall I go to the Palace or shall I go to Çankaya? I will give the palace to this country’s smartest youngsters. I will turn it into a home of science. A bold man will save the country.

 I will subject promotion in the civil service to such a system that nobody will change it for a hundred years. I will not bother myself over whether anyone is Turkish of Kurdish. For example, I will not make a veterinarian into the Head of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. For example, I will not make party provincial chairs into judges and prosecutors.

 Are you the ones to dispense justice to the country? Shame, shame. What use is a judge who cannot try me as president? We will first bring about justice.

 Tomorrow I will hold our first rally in Yalova and settle past scores with the people of Yalova. At about 13.00 hours, I will go somewhere with his excellency our Deputy General Chair Engin Altay and our Party Spokesperson Tezcan. I then await everyone at 13.30 hours in front of the first parliament.

 Muharrem İnce parti rozetini çıkarıp, bayrak rozeti taktı... "Böyle bir cumhurbaşkanı olacağım"