Barış Yarkadaş, opposition party CHP’s (Republican People’s Party) deputy, claimed that a new staff car was purchased for İsmail Kahraman, the President of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The car in question is a Mercedes Benz Maybach S600, worth 5 million Turkish Lira, more than $1.4 million.
Yarkadaş explained that İsmail Kahraman’s staff car had been out of order for some time, and Kahraman was using another armoured car. He also stated that there was another car, an Audi A 8 Long, and he had addressed Kahraman with a parliamentary question as to whether that Audi was assigned to Kahraman’s son.
Yarkadaş claimed that the new car, Mercedes Benz Maybach S600, was redesigned so that it would also be used as an ambulance, and was taken to the Assembly’s car park, and Kahraman was waiting for the Assembly to recess to take the car out.
İsmail Kahraman is also known for his enthusiasm towards luxury. Since he took office, Kahraman has organised pompous fast-breaking meals, had a photography exhibition organised for publicising the era of the tyrant Sultan Abdulhamid II, and had the lobbies of the main Assembly building redecorated. When asked about this level of extravagance he showed with the issue of the lobbies, he would reply: “We will turn it into a 7-star lobby. Why so resentful? We are a magnificent, powerful state.”
The magnificence, however, seems to cease when it comes to the most basic rights of the Assembly workers, such as the shuttle vehicles. İsmail Kahraman had cancelled the workers’ shuttle vehicles as a “saving”, forcing the workers to go to their working place by their own means.
