Baykal Will Not Budge

He said, "We respect the people's decision". He added that "It is not enough that the CHP has increased its percentage of votes by 1.5 points. We will investigate the reasons for the results which are related to us."

"An effective campaign"

Baykal declared that the CHP was Turkey's "political insurance": "As far as the election period is concerned, the CHP has fulfilled an important duty. It appropriated our country's interests, national benefits and the accumulations of the Republic. It was an effective campaign.

Baykal said that he did not feel any doubts about the party's targets and that the party would investigate how to draw greater support for them.

No resignation

He added that the CHP would continuously reinvent itself and that "we will do our part".

Baykal interpreted the entry of 23 "Thousand Hope" candidates supported by the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) as "politics based on ethnic discrimination". "There is no respectable place in democratic politics for a politics which has not convincingly explained its relationship to terror".

Following an article by former CHP politician Zülfü Livaneli, Baykal declared: "After the 2002 elections, it was part of my understanding of democracy that I supported the political rights of the AKP chairperson [Erdogan]. If a party chairperson can bring 360 MPs into parliament, I cannot put a personal embargo on him."

No new discourse

Baykal added that the CHP was not looking for a new political discourse: "The CHP is social democratic and was formed from a national struggle."

New president

He called for the new president to be an honourable person who respected the essence of the constitution, and did not secretly attempt to distort it.

"Lack of humour"

Baykal further said that his much-quoted "If I lose the elections, I will swim to Rhodos" had been a joke. The fact that it had been taken seriously showed the lack of sense of humour in politics. (NZ/AG)