CHP leader blames economic problems amid recent mass suicides

ISTANBUL

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said recent economic policies were the root cause of mass suicides that took place in Turkey in recent weeks.

Recalling the recent collective deaths, Kılıçdaroğlu on Nov. 17 said, “Why is that? Look, next to the garbage containers, you see women rummaging through the garbage for food. We are talking about Turkey in the 21st century.”

The CHP leader was referring to two major incidents of mass suicides in the last two weeks, as well as another mass suicide involving a child.

Four siblings, two brothers, and two sisters, with the youngest having been 48 and the eldest 60 years old, had altogether reportedly committed suicide in their house in Istanbul’s Fatih district. Autopsy results have shown that cyanide was detected in their bodies.

A few days later, Turkey was hit by another news on the death of a family of four, found dead in their house in the southern province of Antalya, again they were determined to have committed suicide using cyanide.

The opposition party believes economic woes are at the heart of these suicides, which they say are having serious impacts on the lives of ordinary people despite the government saying the economy is recovering based on low inflation rates.

“We need a strong social state. We need sustainability,” he said at a meeting with businesspeople.

“If you followed the efforts of [modern Turkey founder Mustafa Kemal] Atatürk, which he made to keep up with the industrial revolution, there would be a different Turkey today,” he said, adding that the country was in this situation because those “efforts had ceased.”

The basic problem of the Turkish Republic is “the collapse of the merit system,” Kılıçdaroğlu said. “When you destroy merit in the state, there is no concept of justice.”

“Law is the set of rules that guarantee the safety of life and property,” he said. “If I do not have the security of life and property, why should foreign capital come?”