Şaziye Köse is deputy co-chair of the HDP and responsible for the working committee. She spoke to ANF about ways out of the economic crisis, the role of the Turkish government and about the “Meetings for Bread and Work” taking place as part of the “Justice for All” campaign.

Over the past 18 years we have seen an increasing impoverishment of the population in Turkey. This development intensified again during the economic crisis and the corona pandemic. This is also one of the themes of the HDP's "Justice for All" campaign. What is the poverty situation in Turkey like?

At the moment, unemployment, poverty, shortages and price increases are among the most threatening problems in Turkey. Since the AKP came to power in 2002, it has pursued a policy that is based on the increasingly insecure situation of the workforce and their impoverishment, as well as the disintegration of their interest groups. As always, the powerful have stood behind the bosses. The government and its allies let workers, women, youth, pensioners, in short, the whole of Turkey pay the bill for the economic crisis, which intensified again during the pandemic. The countless price increases are accompanied by tax increases that guarantee the luxury life of the rulers and the profit of their allies. Working people and the unemployed can no longer buy bread, let alone sunflower oil, while their jobs are threatened by impending bankruptcies.

In Turkey, poverty-related suicides have increased. Do you think this is related to the pandemic only and therefore a temporary situation?

Officially, the government says layoffs would be banned during the pandemic. In fact, it supports its allies and remains silent when Code 29 is used as a reason for the most shameless layoffs in history [According to “Code 29” workers can also be made redundant during the pandemic if the employer accuses them of having acted “not according to moral rules and not with good intentions.” Persons made redundant in this way do not receive unemployment benefit]. In front of the cameras, the powerful shed crocodile tears as they use Code 29 to team up with the wolves. Farmers who cannot sell their crops have their tractors confiscated, and businesses go bust. Meanwhile, those in power are holding lavish balls in their palaces. The president, who has closed his ears to the calls for help from the hundreds of thousands of unemployed, claims with a view of his palace garden that the country will flourish.