The Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) has released a statement on April 19 after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced to hold snap elections on June 24.
Both presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on the same day, on June 24.
‘THE PEOPLE HAVE A CHOICE’
“Turkey is experiencing a political gridlock which binds both the ruling party and opposition parties. This gridlock cannot be eliminated with early elections as suggested by Erdoğan and his partner Bahçeli,” the statement reads, with reference to the decision of Erdoğan and his ally Devlet Bahçeli, the chair of the fascist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The communist party says that Turkey faces this gridlock in many aspects such as the economy, foreign policy and relations with the imperialist world, internal policies, poverty, unemployment, injustice and tyranny in defiance of the working people.
Stating that an early election can neither fulfil nor eliminate the true requirement for the working people, the TKP says this social order must be toppled down. “The TKP will represent the only real choice of our people, the only way out of this darkness, i.e. “communism”, as a concrete, tangible social order,” the statement continues.
“If the Supreme Electoral Council, which rendered the already unfair electoral system prone to all sorts of fraud with its strange and unlawful decisions so as to turn it into a playground for the ruling party, insists on pursuing the goal to keep the TKP out of the elections, no one should expect the TKP to show humility and step aside,” the statement underlines.
Voters criticize the electoral council (YSK) for acting dependently on Erdoğan’s AKP party, considering that the YSK imposed many unlawful electoral decisions on political parties and controversially made a last minute decision to regard unsealed ballots valid just as the votes were counted at the April 2017 constitutional referendum.
“Nobody has the power to mute socialism in June 24 elections. The TKP will not allow the toiling masses to be left without a choice in parliamentary elections,” the TKP says, adding that the presidential election to be held on the same day is nothing but a gross attack on people’s right to vote as the ruling party wants to complete the process which was launched with an evidently fraudulent ballot at a referendum in April 2017.
‘THIS SOCIAL ORDER WILL BE TOPPLED DOWN’
As the voice of the working class in Turkey, the TKP says, “Turkey can and will be liberated by the will and steadfastness of people to change this social order, not by the will of this or that person. The TKP will work to organize the will of people in the presidential election.”
Calling on the working people to attend May 1 demonstrations, the communist party underlines, “On May 1, workers must take to the streets to demand the change of this social order. Those who will take to the streets on May 1 are those who will change the destiny of Turkey. On that day, both friends and foes must see who the real owners of this country are. The TKP calls on our people to extend hope in May Day rallies along with the party.”
The Communist Party of Turkey concludes the statement by reminding that in the upcoming elections it will foster the will of toppling down the bourgeois system for a free and equal country where unemployment, poverty, injustice and tyranny will come to an end, calling on the people to organize this will along with the party.
