‘The real cause of economic crisis in Turkey is the Presidential System’

* Photo: DEVA Party

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DEVA Party Chair Ali Babacan, also a former Deputy Prime Minister from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), spoke at his party's 1st Ordinary Mardin Provincial Congress on Saturday (November 7).

Addressing a series of current issues in his speech, Babacan has also talked about the dismissal of Central Bank Governor Murat Uysal with a Presidential Decree and his replacement with Naci Ağbal:

"We must never forget that the real cause of what has been happening in the economy is the Partisan Presidential Government System, which has excluded institutional and common sense, eliminated meritocracy and destroyed our long-established institutions.

"If the Governor of the Central Bank is removed from office and replaced with someone else in a sudden operation at one night, it shows nothing other than the poor management of the economy.

"They changed the former Central Bank Governor, saying, 'He doesn't listen, we tell him to do something, but he doesn't.' They appointed a Governor who would do what he was told to do. They are now trying to put the whole blame on a single bureaucrat for this bad management."

Babacan has stressed that "neither the President nor the ones who manage the economy can evade responsibility for the economic collapse and the bad economic conditions by putting the blame entirely on a single bureaucrat." "It is not that easy, this nation is not that naive," he has added.

Civil war in Syria

In his speech in Mardin, DEVA Party Chair Babacan has also touched upon the civil war raging in Syria since 2011.

"Our country could have played a different role to establish peace and tranquility in Syria," Babacan has said, adding that "approaching the domestic affairs of neighboring countries from a narrow and ideological perspective does not do any good to anyone."

Asking his audience "Why does politics exist," Babacan has answered his own question briefly in following words: "Politics exists so that no problem will linger forever, so that every conflict can end in resolution, so that sorrows will come to an end. That is why we are doing politics. The politics should establish peace and tranquility so that people's level of welfare can rise, the region can develop and enjoy freedoms to the full."

'We will defend living together'

In his speech in Turkey's southeastern province of Mardin, Babacan has mentioned "principles of living together" and listed them as follows:

"Attaching central importance to human dignity, guaranteeing rights and freedoms, establishing the separation of powers, protecting nature and environment, relying on equality, justice and the principle of secularism as well as on the rule of law, ensuring the state's ideological impartiality and reinforcing local administrations and civil society..."

Noting that "a life together means the democratic participation of all segments of the society in the government," Babacan has underlined that mother language is a fundamental human right, promising that if the DEVA Party comes to power, it will "take steps to ensure that people's mother language is protected, used and developed."

"We consider our citizens' demands regarding mother language to be a fundamental human right. We will recognize all rights of our citizens immediately and without bargaining," he has added. (RT/SD)