After being governed by AKP mayors for years, Muş Municipality is now ruled by the DEM Party administration in the 31 March local elections. The DEM Party co-mayors who took office are trying to pay off the municipality's debts on the one hand and to meet the needs of the people on the other.

Muş Municipality co-mayor Sırrı Söylemez, in his assessment of the municipality's work, told ANF: "Since our party participated in the 1999 local elections, we won the municipality for the first time as the DEM Party. We went out to our streets with our people in a four-month period. We visited every street. Our people are happy. We made our people feel that the municipality is theirs and that they should take care of it. No matter what, the city belongs to us all. The municipality is not private property. It belongs to the people. We have opened the doors of the municipality that were previously closed. We meet with our people every day and listen to their problems."

‘The biggest problems are unemployment and migration’

Co-mayor Söylemez said: "Since the central government has not made the necessary investments in the fields of industry, agriculture and animal husbandry, unemployment is at its highest level. We are also experiencing migration due to unemployment. We have started small-scale work to stop this migration. We have prepared our projects and submitted them to the necessary institutions. We have accelerated our work in order to solve the unemployment problem. Before we came to power, there was a city that was especially longing for its own language. We currently have a project in the field of language. We will establish our art and culture congress center. There, we will provide all the necessary opportunities for all languages ​​and peoples living in Muş, especially Kurdish, to keep their cultures alive. In this area, we changed our municipality sign for the first time and hung our Kurdish sign. This was welcomed by our people. We are really struggling with debts. We want to help women and young people in the field of employment. We aim to create a small employment area with our cooperative project."

‘We are trying to cover the debts left by AKP’

Söylemez said that previous mayors did not provide service to the people, and added: "Since the day we took office, our people expected service from us and conveyed their demands. We are working to implement these demands. We aim to pay off the large debts left from the AKP period. We are currently in debt to the Bank of Provinces and deductions are being made from the incoming revenues. When these debts are paid off, we will implement the many projects we have prepared.

The state has a major deficiency here because it is not making the necessary investments. The central government needs to take steps in this regard. We do not want our people to migrate. Since we took office, we have repaired areas where people can be comfortable and make their daily lives easier. We have worked to ensure the cleaning of the city. We have fulfilled our promise of a city restaurant, and the project phase has been completed. We have accelerated our work on construction. We will build all of our roads. We are working to reduce traffic congestion. We have corrected the salaries of our laborers and made the necessary increase. Now everyone is aware that the municipality belongs to them."