Photo: AA

Click to read the article in Turkish

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) and presidential candidate of the Nation Alliance gave a speech to the people who gathered around the party headquarters of CHP last night.

He emphasized that the candidate was "all of us."

Below is the short speech Kılıçdaroğlu made.

"Beyond being a candidate, I am today in front of you as the representative of a change. I am with you as the spokesperson for long-term efforts, for a shared vision built devotedly together. Me, and our alliance, we will be standing in the elections for ruling this country with wisdom, virtue, and competence.

"I am not only a candidate for President; I am a candidate of the longing for plenitude, for peace, and for justice. I am a candidate in order to be able to see smiling faces again. I am a candidate for more than winning an election. I am a candidate for winning people's favor, ending concerns, overcoming fears, for reconciliation, for bringing plenitude to our tables...

"Not only me, but all citizens, everybody who is going to go voting, is a candidate to change this country for the better life that it deserves.

"I came a long way. I filled my bag with the stories of the people of this beautiful country. Their faces, their voices, and their aspirations became my compass. Now I am a candidate together with them! We want to change this order which they tell us is our fate!

"Do you know who are candidates together with me? I visited İbrahim whose electricity was cut in Ankara. İbrahim is a candidate. I visited Rıdvan's family, the miner who lost his life in the mine disaster in Bartın. Rıdvan's son Emrullah is a candidate.

"I hugged Emine Şenyaşar who is on justice watch for her son. She is a candidate. The youth who told us on February 8 in Samandağ, Hatay that there were his mother, brother, and father under the debris, that he was able to hear them, and that they could be seen with the thermal camera, but there was no equipment for rescuing them, his young man is a candidate.

"All our earthquake victims are candidates.

"I went to the depot of the street paper collectors, whose tools that they make a living with they wanted to seize. Baver who I met there is a candidate.

"Meliha, the farmer woman who told me in pain that she had to have her milk cow slaughtered for her loan repayments, is a candidate.

"I visited Sultan Kara and her family who was dismissed from being a teacher in the February 28 case process and listened to them. She is a candidate.

"I visited Kuddisi Okkır who they intended to kill with the Ergenekon conspiracy. His wife Sabriye Okkır who met me resolutely then is a candidate.

"Ayşe Ateş is the wife of Sinan Ateş*, whom they got killed, by bagmen. She is a candidate.

"The 73-year-old Hanife who is actively defending the Ida Mountains is a candidate. I listened to Salihcan who made a score in the public personnel selection examination but was not appointed, he is a candidate. Vera is the daughter of Tayfun who is unjustly being kept in prison in the Gezi Park case. She is a candidate.

I am not the only candidate. 84 million people are. These 84 million people, who they believe they can threaten with SADAT** militants are the candidates... Those whose bread, whose water, and whose future have been stolen; those 84 million are candidates.

"Everybody who wants the 418 billion dollars stolen from them back is a candidate.

"You will not be voting for me only. You will be voting for yourself, for the ones you love, and for your future. Because you are the ones to change this order. This is the beginning of a complete change. We will return to the people what was stolen from them. We will establish an order that we deserve all together. Uniting all, we will win. I am not the candidate, we all are.

"Now we are starting my dear people..."

* * * 

 * Sinan Ateş, the ex-president of Grey Wolves, an ultranationalist group affiliated with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), was assassinated in Ankara on Friday (December 30).

** An ad for SADAT, a controversial military contractor which Kılıçdaroğlu previously described as a paramilitary organization training terrorists was shown during an interview with Kılıçdaroğlu on a TV channel on January 14. 

(AS/PE)