Kemal Okuyan, the independent candidate of This Social Order Must Change Platform from the second electoral district of İzmir province for the parliamentary election on June 24, was the guest of a local TV program on June 3. Presented by the journalist Musa Özuğurlu, a variety of topics including the foreign policy of ruling AKP party, the Kurdish problem, and how the AKP party has been supporting the capitalist system has been discussed.
The Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) had been unlawfully banned from the elections even though they had met all the criteria to run, which had resulted in the formation of the “This Social Order Must Change” Platform.
Since June 3 is the anniversary of the death of the great communist poet Nazım Hikmet, Kemal Okuyan commemorated him, saying "Nazım Hikmet is our great value that makes us proud given the conditions of today's Turkey."
Speaking about the TKP, Kemal Okuyan said "Our party never conceals its own identity. We never concealed our aim of building a communist society. The people question how we will provide necessary resources for that. That palace [referring to the Presidential palace of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] must either be demolished or transformed into a public educational facility. This is obvious and yet the solution is not that simple either. No one questions the transfer of public resources to the private sector."
Okuyan also talked about the Kurdish issue, saying "The people of this country know how to live in fraternity. The ones who aim to divide the working people turn it into a problem. This can be observed everywhere in the world in addition to our country. You cannot even solve traffic problems without terminating exploitation. The ruling class in the world plays with the Kurdish problem and this is quite a heavy issue. There can be no good nationalism in the 21st century."
Talking about the foreign policy of the ruling AKP party, Okuyan said "The dissolution of Europe enables Erdoğan room for negotiation in the foreign policy. The imperialist system is hierarchical. The country on top of that hierarchy tries hard to keep the social system while at the same time trying to rule. Imperialism creates wars and crises. The end of imperialism is dark. The foreign policy of Turkey has two factors. Firstly, Erdoğan manipulates the balances to protect himself. Secondly, there is the condition of disorder within the imperialist world as I mentioned. When the TKP seizes the power, Turkey will at once leave NATO, and invalidate all agreements with the EU and will close all foreign military bases in Turkey."
As an answer to the question on the views of TKP regarding religion, Okuyan said "Our party members are free to have religious opinions. However, they do not propagate them in the political arena. That's why neither of TKP members make religion an instrument. The number of people with religious faith who support our views increase, because they are getting aware of the dishonesty."
Okuyan also talked about how the ruling AKP government serves the capitalists, saying "Erdoğan has ruined everything in Turkey except for how the system of profit works. That's exactly what we are going to undo. The capitalist groups like Koç are the ones who kept Erdoğan in power for 16 years, because they made immense profits. They profited by destroying the green areas, by destroying humanity. They profit from wars, illnesses and even curing illnesses."
During the AKP era, Koç Holding somehow represented the secular part of Turkish capitalists. In November 2017, Koç Holding declared that its net profit climbed 31 percent to 1.290 billion lira ($334 million) in the third quarter from 981 million lira in the same period a year earlier. Koç astronomically increased its profits in 2017 at oil refinery TÜPRAŞ company that was privatized during the rule of AKP government.
