The DEM Party continues its initiatives regarding the removal of the mayor of the Kurdish city of Hakkari. On Monday, the two deputy parliamentary group chairs, Gülistan Kılıç Koçyiğit and Sezai Temelli, as well as the deputy party leader Öztürk Türkdoğan held talks with members of the opposition parties CHP, Saadet and DEVA in the Turkish parliament in Ankara.
The focus of the talks was an exchange of ideas on the appointment of a trustee by the Ministry of the Interior to replace DEM politician Mehmet Sıddık Akış, who was elected co-mayor of Hakkari in the local elections at the end of March and was first dismissed from office last week and then sentenced to 20 years in prison on alleged terror charges.
Temelli said that the ‘trustee regime’ of the ruling AKP-MHP power bloc had been established as a method of government and warned that it was not limited to the DEM Party. Remarking that it is necessary to find a common basis of political and social opposition in order to put a stop to the trustee regime, he said: “We need a clear stance in favour of democracy so that the will of the voters is not further undermined.”