Kılıçdaroğlu’s dossiers on Istanbul

"Kılıçdaroğlu should come and govern Istanbul on a Sunday. We’ll see if he can do it?" he said. Kılıçdaroğlu was quick to respond. "If he offers his seat on a Sunday, I’ll show how I’ll govern Istanbul. Besides, I wouldn’t call anyone ’an empty tin box’. With his remarks, Topbaş cannot serve as a mayor to this city of elegance."

Kılıçdaroğlu’s emphasis on fineness overlaps with his personality because in a meeting I attended this week I listened to him. And I can easily say that he is an extremely "polite" gentleman. The institution inviting Kılıçdaroğlu to present his Istanbul dossier, I mean what he will do for Istanbul, is the "Young Businessmen Association", or TUGIAD in short. With its approximately 700 members, the TUGIAD is a non-governmental organization successfully lobbying for Turkey especially in the European Union. It is the name behind the initiative asking the EU to provide visa weavers to Turkish businessmen. Let’s see what’s in Kılıçdaroğlu’s dossier? He is a politician whom we mostly know through corruption files he rather keeps about the governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and its mayors.

Istanbul, the city of culture

Kılıçdaroğlu’s first evaluation is that Istanbul doesn’t have the self-confidence of the 21st century metropolitans. Although it has an unparalleled position in the world, Istanbul cannot claim its culture and history, that is to say its strongest values. One of his dreams is to see Istanbul as a "city of culture". I totally agree with him that such a title will perfectly fit Istanbul.

As I see the clouds recently over the project called "Istanbul European Capital of Culture 2010", however, I am being pessimistic. Anyway this is a separate issue. Let’s go back to Kılıçdaroğlu’s dossier again. He believes that Istanbul lacks squares for people to relax. However, I wouldn’t know in which part of Istanbul we can have large squares as the city loses green fields due to unplanned urbanization.

Against the migration wave threatening Istanbul Kılıçdaroğlu suggests "moving labor-intensive industrial branches outside Istanbul and keeping industries that require qualified labor force such as science sector". Both make sense. According to Kılıçdaroğlu, in big metropolitan cities including Tokyo, Paris and London this approach is being pushed to the fore.

For Istanbul, a similar strategy may be adopted in the future. But what are the suggestions for solving the issue of over-populated slum areas in Istanbul due to heavy migration today? That was what I wanted to hear from Kılıçdaroğlu. As he stressed, what will we do with people who have never seen the sea or been to movies?

How will we help them to have peace with such a mega city like Istanbul? How will we bring closer the people who prefer not to have any connections? What are the CHP mayoral candidate’s "social projects" on them?For instance, I expected to hear at least a "pool" for people who never seen the sea in the slums of Istanbul and "day care" for working mothers. Unfortunately, none was in Kılıçdaroğlu’s dossierÉ