Warning of losing the 2028 Turkish elections due to the investment funds scandal

Voices from within the ruling Justice and Development Party in Turkey have sounded the alarm about the possibility that the people will deal a strong blow to the party in the parliamentary and presidential elections expected in 2028 against the backdrop of a scandal of manipulation and fraud in investment funds that has inflicted huge losses on the economy and implicated prominent names in the party.

The former Speaker of the Turkish Parliament, one of the most prominent founders of the Justice and Development Party, Bulent Arinc, warned of the repercussions of the crisis, which revealed the involvement of senior officials in the party and some of their sons and relatives in it, saying: “We could lose the upcoming elections if the crisis is not dealt with properly, resolved completely, and the money that some people obtained illegally is returned to those affected.”

Arinc stressed, in statements during a reception held in Parliament on Thursday-Friday night on the occasion of the opening of its new session, the necessity of continuing investigations until the end, and holding those responsible accountable.

A slap from the people

Arinc said: “We are talking about a loss of 800 billion Turkish liras, while the money that will be collected from various sources does not exceed 8 billion, so who will pay the rest? Who is responsible for this? They must all be exposed.”

Commenting on Erdogan’s statement during his speech at the opening of the new parliamentary session: “We are successfully overcoming the problem that emerged in part of the fund market, within the framework of capital market rules, taking into account fairness and justice, and without allowing anyone to infringe on anyone’s rights. We are working to solve this problem quickly, and we confirm that the foundation of our economy and financial markets is solid and will not be affected by what happened,” Arinc said: “I trust the words of our president, and I hope that this will come true.”

But Arinc, who also served as Deputy Prime Minister in one of Erdogan’s governments, expressed his concern about the decline of the values ​​on which the Justice and Development Party was built, saying: “I have been a companion of President Erdogan since 1978, and I believe in the same values ​​that he believes in, but at this stage, and when I look at the speech he gave in Parliament, I see that while he emphasizes adherence to these values ​​and principles, he does not apply them on the ground.”

“If this does not happen, we will lose the elections, but worst of all, people will lose their trust in us and their feelings towards us,” Arinc said. I do not want that to happen. Our party must return to the values ​​on which it was raised. We are obligated to do so, otherwise the blow to the nation will be strong. “It will hit us hard and put us in a completely different situation. The system must be reformed, and importance must be given to efficiency, merit, and consultation.”

Repercussions of the funds scandal

The Justice and Development Party's Vice President for Social Policies, Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, resigned from her position a few days ago, after the "New Party" revealed that she and her husband, Ilyas Kaya, had withdrawn their money from a fund days before the start of investigations into the manipulation and fraud scandal, where they obtained an amount of about 2.2 billion Turkish liras, in exchange for an investment of 136 million liras in the "Awazata Denizcelik" company less than Only 4 months.

Other names from the party that were involved were also revealed, including Mustafa Yazıcı, the son of the party’s vice president, Hayati Yazıcı, in the scandal, and Iskender Balcı, the son-in-law of the former Deputy Minister of Treasury and Finance, Osman Celik, and the son of Mustafa Balcı, the former executive officer at the Banking Regulatory and Supervision Authority, and Ibrahim Omar Gonul, the son of Vajdi Gonul, the Minister of Defense and former head of the Capital Markets Authority.

Arinc said: “There is a significant decline in moral values. We are failing to provide a good example for our youth. Bad examples alienate people from their religion, and investigations into the embezzlement of funds’ funds have revealed incidents involving many well-known public figures. Everyone must be held accountable.”

A sharp position of the opposition

In the same context, opposition leader and head of the “New Party,” Ozgur Ozil, said in a speech during a rally of party supporters in the city of Artvin, northern Turkey, on Friday: “They have seized the money that the citizens entrusted the state to manage, but they accuse the opposition of corruption and are seizing its municipalities one after another, under this claim.”

Turkish security forces arrested, at dawn on Friday, the mayor of Sultan Eyup in Istanbul, which is affiliated with the Republican People's Party, Midhat Bulent Ozman, and 27 other of its officials on charges of "belonging to a criminal organization," "receiving and offering bribes," and "manipulating tenders."

This came one day after the arrest of the head of the Turkish Municipalities Union, the mayor of Mersin (south), Vahap Secher, from the same party, the mayors of two affiliated municipalities and 27 of the three municipal officials, on similar charges, in the latest wave of prosecutions in opposition municipalities.

Ozil directed sharp words to President Erdogan, during his speech in Artvin, saying: “I direct my words to Erdogan; Either you stop this charlatan impersonating the Minister of Justice (Akin Gurlik), who is manipulating the honor of innocent people and their wives, and sending false and misleading pictures and video clips to some journalists asking to write news based on them, or we will come and stop him.”