Turkish Presidential candidate İhsanoğlu: "There is fear in Turkey, people are afraid of the government."

Turkish Presidential candidate İhsanoğlu: "There is fear in Turkey, people are afraid of the government." (HD).

İhsanoğlu, who is supported by not only the two largest opposition parties - the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) - but also five other smaller parties, gave an unusually blunt answer; unusual to his mild, academic, diplomatic stance and non-partisan style.

“One of the main reasons of being a candidate for me, when this offer was made, was to stand against this drift toward authoritarianism,” he said.

“There is a danger that the authorities achieved through democratic means are being concentrated in one hand. The government has subjugated Parliament due to its seat domination and the judiciary to a great extent due to changes in legislation passed through Parliament, while some of the media are applauding this picture. This is not democracy. The presidency is the only institution left out of this picture. I am against this [drift] not because of European Union reports, not because of U.S. senators or the State Department, I am against this because our people suffer from it. Not because of Senator McCain, but because my Aunt Fatma and Uncle Hacı on the street are against it,” he added.

Touching on the same issue again later on during the presser, İhsanoğlu complained that media and individual freedoms were being restricted, “from the Internet to all other fields.” “There is fear in Turkey, people are afraid of the government. I cannot understand how we have ended up like this,” he said.Read the full story here.