What you need to know about Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu

The question of who will be the opposition presidential candidate has recently been one of the most curious in our country. Some thought that the opposition bloc should go to the polls with Mansour Yavash or Ekrem Imamoglu. Others saw the leader of the main opposition party as a natural presidential candidate. Finally, last night the “candidate crisis” between the Nation Alliance and the IYI party was overcome and Republican People’s Party President Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was announced as the alliance’s presidential candidate. So, how did the story of Kılıçdaroglu develop from a remote village in Tunceli to his candidacy for the presidency? Here’s what you need to know about National Alliance presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was born on December 17, 1948 in the village of Ballicha, Nazimiye Tunceli district, into a poor family.

His father Kamer Bey was one of the few who managed to study and become a civil servant in Tunceli under the conditions of that period. Worked as a cadastral inspector. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who started his life as the 4th child in the “Karabulut” family with 7 children, spent the first years of his life in different cities like Van, Elazig, Tunceli and Bingöl because of his father’s profession.

The Karabulut family took the surname Kılıçdaroğlu in the 1950s. His father, Kamer, grew bored with the fact that everyone in his village had the surname Karabulut, and in the 1950s, by court order, he changed his nuclear family’s surname to “Kılıçdaroğlu”.

Kemal Kılıçdaroglu has been known as a hardworking person since childhood.

In 1967, he graduated from Elazig Commerce High School with first place. He won the Faculty of Economics and Finance of the Ankara Academy of Economic and Commercial Sciences.

He was educated at the same time as Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party.

He was a school friend at university with Bahceli, with whom he is a political rival these days. At that time, Bahceli was the leader of the idealists at the university. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, on the contrary, did not remain aloof from the political events of his student years, participated in protest demonstrations, but did not join extreme groups. Despite this, he was attacked by dissident students during his university years. He was detained for a short time and beaten. However, he never felt hostility because of this ugly incident. He even reunited with the man who led the group that kidnapped him.

He graduated from the university in 1971 and began his working life.

He passed the accounting assistant exam and started working as an accountant for the Treasury Department. For many years he worked in different parts and frames. In 1992, he became CEO of the Social Security Institute (SGK). In 1996, he was fired by the Minister of Labor and Social Security of the Welfare Party, Necati Celik. However, at the end of the legal battle, he returned to his job in 1997. He remained in office until he resigned of his own accord in 1999.

The General Directorate of the SGC also played an important role in the political life of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

His opponents have used Kılıçdaroğlu’s days in the JCC for many years as a political argument. His rivals claimed that he caused damage to the institution during his tenure as General Directorate. Kılıçdaroğlu said the damage was caused by the social security policy created by the government of the time, which allowed even 38-year-olds to retire.

After his retirement, he wanted to enter politics in the ranks of the DSP, but his request to become a member of parliament was not approved by the leader of the DSP, Bülent Ecevit.

However, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu managed to attract the attention of Deniz Baikal, the chairman of the thermal power plant, with a corruption dossier prepared by him. Thus, he became an MP in the 2002 elections. He was also known for his hard work during his parliamentary term. Thus, he was nominated as a candidate for deputy in the 2007 elections. During the same period, he became one of the three vice-presidents of the CHP group in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. In the same period, his visibility in the political arena began to increase.

“Corruption cases”, which he announced one after another, made Kemal Kılıçdaroglu widely known.

He confronted the politicians and administrators he accused of corruption on TV screens and on the air, and delivered the documents he disclosed to millions of people in a language everyone could understand. For example, SEP Vice Chairman and Deputy Sakarya Shaban Dishli, whom he accused of “running a $1 million business”, was forced to resign.

He claimed that 89 kg of heroin had been seized in a truck transporting the products of the Menas company, of which Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat, one of the important names of the AKP, is a partner, and that this company was engaged in fictitious exports. . He met with Firat live. In the next trial, Firat resigned, citing health issues. His successful performance on television made Kemal Kılıçdaroglu famous among the masses.

Following his growing popularity in society, he became a candidate for the mayor of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in the local elections on March 29, 2009.

He finished the election in second place with 36.80 percent of the vote. He did not win the election, but he managed to increase his party’s share of the vote by 10 percent compared to previous elections. This increase had a positive impact on the political image of Kılıçdaroğlu.

At the 33rd Ordinary Congress of the CHP on May 22, 2010, he was elected as the 7th Chairman of the CHP, receiving almost all the votes.

At the time he became head of the CHP, it was claimed that he could not control the party.

It has been argued that the influence of names such as Onder Sav and Deniz Baikal in the CHP will continue and that these names will control the party. However, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu managed to break the effectiveness of various power groups in the party and impose his power over the years.

He succeeded in increasing his party’s vote in the first elections in which he ran as chairman of the CHP.

In the 2011 general election, the CHP managed to increase the vote to 25.98 percent, an increase of about 3.5 million votes. However, this increase in votes was not enough to get into power. For this reason, although he managed to increase his party’s vote, his opponents within the party blamed him for the failure.

He did not hesitate to take steps to provoke a reaction from the party base.

For example, in the presidential elections of 2014, along with the MHP, the former Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Prof. Dr. He nominated Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu as a presidential candidate. Kılıçdaroğlu, who was heavily criticized for this decision, said he was behind his decision with his statements.

However, Kılıçdaroğlu’s opposition methods have also been criticized from time to time within the party. Sometimes he was accused of excessive militancy, sometimes of passivity.

After the 2017 referendum, he laid the foundations for the Alliance of Nations.

The referendum was positive by a small margin. However, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu began to establish relations with various circles that refused the referendum. In other words, the foundations of the Alliance of Nations, which today represents the main opposition bloc, were laid by Kılıçdaroğlu in 2017.

He held one of the largest civic actions in our country with the “March of Justice”.

After the arrest of Enis Berberoglu as part of the MIT truck investigation, he organized a “March of Justice” from Ankara to Istanbul. In the same period, the III party, which was founded by MPs who left the MHP, admitted 15 CHP MPs to this party so that they could form a group and go to the polls.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s longstanding policy of reconciliation and dialogue has borne fruit in 2019.

The National Alliance won many metropolitan municipalities, especially Ankara and Istanbul, in the 2019 local elections.

He became the Alliance of Nations presidential candidate in the 2023 presidential election.

Sometimes he was blamed for his failures, sometimes he was appreciated for his unifying attitude. He was instrumental in the founding of the Alliance of Nations, the founding of the Six Tables, and its survival. Yesterday (March 6) a new and extremely important page opened in the political life of Kemal Kılıçdaroglu. Kılıçdaroğlu was announced as the presidential candidate of the Alliance of Nations.