CHP municipalities reveal extravagant event spending by former AKP mayors amid investigations
Following investigations into event expenditures by CHP-led Ankara and Istanbul municipalities, both opposition mayors disclosed that former AKP mayors had incurred even higher costs for fewer events.
Duvar English
Main-opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Ankara Metropolitan Mayor Mansur Yavaş on Nov. 14 disclosed that a total of $30.1 million was spent on all 426 events and organizations held between 2019 and 2024 during his term.
His announcement came after prosecutor’s launched investigations against CHP’s Istanbul and Ankara metropolitan municipalities along with Beykoz District Municipality in Istanbul to determine whether event spending caused “public harm.”
Yavaş reported that during the 2014-2019 period, under the previous ruling justice and Development Party (AKP) administration, a total of $32.9 million was spent on just 80 events.
The same data has been also shared by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu’s advisor Murat Ongun.
The data revealed that during the previous AKP period, $437.6 million was spent on events over four years, while in the CHP period, $295.8 million was spent over five years.
Ongun stated, "Despite such a difference, we leave it to the public's conscience to decide why all investigations and inquiries are being conducted solely for our period."
The municipalities noted that the exchange rates from previous years were taken from the Central Bank's statistics, considering the service procurement dates or contract initiation dates.
Three ministries instructed to falsely accuse CHP municipalities, CHP leader says
CHP Chair Özgür Özel reacted to the investigations initiated into the “event expenses” of their municipalities, "We know that the Interior Ministry, the Justice Ministry, and the Labor Ministry were instructed to 'find a crime in CHP-run municipalities, and if they can't find one, fabricate one.'"
Criticizing the government, Özel said, "Those who always hide behind the ballot box, the people have decided, they gave you 20% of the population, while they gave us the authority to govern 65% of it. The CHP manages 85% of the economy. The people have made their decision, you will have to respect it, learn from it, and if you manage well, you will win the elections."
Main opposition leader stated that the Istanbul Municipality had filed criminal complaints with 36 cases related to the previous AKP administration, and the Ankara Municipality had submitted 40 cases regarding the former AKP period, but no action had been taken on any of them.
Commenting particularly on the investigation into CHP’s Beykoz Municipality, Özel stated, "A prosecutor initiates action, and that prosecutor turns out to be a cousin of Fahrettin Altun. They are trying to carry out a character assassination."