ISTANBUL – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News<\/p>\n
Eighty-four-year-old Erbakan launches the party’s electoral campaign in Istanbul’s conservative Ey\u00fcp district. DAILY NEWS photo, Hasan ALTINI\u015eIK<\/p>\n
The Saadet (Felicity) Party will make Turkey a leading country in the world and will work for the \u201chappiness of all humanity.\u201d This was the Saadet Party\u2019s motto on Friday, when they launched their electoral campaign for next year\u2019s general elections in Turkey.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will come [to power] to establish a new world [order],\u201d said Necmettin Erbakan, Saadet\u2019s founder and present leader, during his speech in Istanbul\u2019s Ey\u00fcp district, where he has launched all his past electoral campaigns. Erbakan was reinstated as the party\u2019s leader at Saadet\u2019s extraordinary congress last month. \u201cWe will roll our sleeves up for more than six months to bring our [victory] back,\u201d Erbakan said, adding that happiness and welfare could not be gained with \u201cimitated visions [referring to the ruling AKP\u2019s vision], by neglect or denial of Islam, by borrowing money and applying interest-rate policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hundreds of Saadet supporters, including considerable crowds of women, gathered in front of the Ey\u00fcp mosque to support the launch of Saadet\u2019s electoral campaign by its historic leader. Turkish delight was distributed by women, and people carried placards reading, \u201cLeading country, Turkey,\u201d \u201cWe are not like the others, we are one and unique,\u201d \u201cThe third rise begins: Felicity, abundance, welfare, plentitude is coming\u201d and \u201cA new world [order].\u201d<\/p>\n
We cannot bring \u201cfelicity\u201d without a new, just world, Erbakan said, adding that Turkey had to rely on its own forces rather than on membership in the European Union for progress and development. Erbakan is the founder of the \u201cmilli g\u00f6r\u00fc\u015f\u201d \u2013 Turkish for \u201cnational view\u201d \u2013 movement, under which Turkey would develop reliance on its own labor and economic power by conserving its own values and history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will bring back the pool system,\u201d Erbakan said, referring to a system for managing public finances and expenditures. He also promised that he would increase the economic welfare of the Turkish people by banning interest rates, regarded a sin in Islam, and by increasing wages and retirement pensions as well.<\/p>\n
Erbakan\u2019s call for \u201cindependence from the Western world\u201d and for a world-leading Turkey standing on its own two feet seems to be favored by many Saadet supporters who talked to the Daily News after the meeting Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI support Erbakan as he strives for justice, for the \u201cnational view\u201d case,\u201d Nazmiye Turan, a 34-year-old Saadet supporter, told the Daily News in a Friday interview after Erbakan\u2019s speech. \u201cOur case is not only for the Muslims, but for the entire world. As our motto says, \u2018A [leading] Turkey for the entire world,\u2019\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cErbakan is a world leader,\u201d said 45-year-old Saadet supporter Emine \u00c7alaz, adding that she believed he would make Turkey better off once in power.<\/p>\n
Erbakan will bring freedom of expression and religion, according to B\u00fc\u015fra Gece, 18, a student who had come to support Saadet. She told the Daily News. \u201cHe will bring freedom for Muslims not only in Turkey, but all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will become stronger not by compromising with Europe but by standing up on our own,\u201d said Kamil Erdin\u00e7, a 63-year-old retiree, referring to Erbakan\u2019s anti-EU calls. \u201cThe interest rates will be removed if Saadet comes to power,\u201d he said, adding he did not have any expectations for himself from the party but believed it would make the country better off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISTANBUL – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News Eighty-four-year-old Erbakan launches the party’s electoral campaign in Istanbul’s conservative Ey\u00fcp district. DAILY NEWS photo, Hasan ALTINI\u015eIK The Saadet (Felicity) Party will make Turkey a leading country in the world and will work for the \u201chappiness of all humanity.\u201d This was the Saadet Party\u2019s motto on Friday, when they launched […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":70326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[4569,102],"class_list":["post-26943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-erbakan","tag-istanbul"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}