CHP CHAIRPERSON AND NATION ALLIANCE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE KEMAL KILIÇDAROĞLU: I WILL BROADEN THE MIDDLE CLASS AND STRENGTHEN IT LIKE STEEL

CHP Chairperson and Nation Alliance Presidential Candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said, "For Mr Kemal, the middle class is the class that has a secure job, owns a house, can save, can invest in the future, can afford to pay for their children's education. I will broaden this class and strengthen it like steel."

CHP Chairperson and Presidential Candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu made the following statements in the video he shared on his social media account this evening with the note "Labourers":

"Dear people, today I would like to address white-collar labourers. Look, I don't believe in this white-blue-collar issue. They say so, but they are also labourers and workers. One is an office labourer, the other a factory worker. Both are in the same situation. Both are in a great crisis. Turkey is experiencing the heaviest economic crisis in its history. We are in a deep depression beyond the crisis. They went over the labourers like a steamroller. Only a handful of rich people, to whom the government has given away the wealth of this country, are in good spirits.

So let's not say white collar, blue collar. The middle class must grow, no matter what your collar is. In Turkey, all segments of society, except for a small group of people, are besieged by the economic depression, the food crisis and the housing crisis triggered by it. The middle class has been destroyed. I say it explicitly, the middle class has been destroyed. The courtiers should not deceive themselves; inequalities make the upper-income groups richer, the middle-income groups exhausted, and the lower-income groups full of rage. Do they think they can make their day by making everyone poorer? They can't. All collars, whether white or blue, middle class or poor, depend on each other. Look, the poverty line has risen to 31,240 TL. No system can withstand this; it will collapse, it will collapse for sure. Today, more and more of our citizens wake up in poverty every morning.

In this country, we can either have democracy, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few people, but we cannot have both.

What is the middle class for Mr Kemal? The class with a secure job, who owns a house, can save, can invest in the future, and can afford to pay for their children's education is the middle class, and it does not depend on this collar.

I will broaden this class and strengthen it like steel. How will I do this?

1. We will attract investment by providing an environment of confidence in the country.

2. We will return to the people what has been stolen from the people through clean governance. And with a team of rational Champions League economists, we will quickly pull Turkey out of the crisis.

3. We will build a resilient new industrial revolution infrastructure to make Turkey a country that competes with the world by taking Turkey out of the spiral of cheap labour and high inflation. We will invest in all areas of technology.

4. We will reorganise the income tax tariff for employees. We will reduce the tax burden on labourers. We will not tax minimum wage earners.

5. We will increase the participation of women in working life. Then, when they earn income, these households will quickly turn into middle-income groups.

6. We will create economic mobility from Istanbul to Anatolia by spreading industry all over the country. We will revitalise Anatolia. This means raising wages automatically.

7. We will establish technology high schools in organised industrial zones. Our youth will gain new skills through vocational education. The problem of labour required by the industrialists will be solved.

Our plans are ready for all of them. We have worked everything out. We are so prepared and good that there is only one thing left: to send these incompetents out. One vote, one vote, that's all it takes.

With love."