“As the Turkish Business World Confederation (TÜRKONFED), we would like to thank our citizens who participated in the March 31 Local Government General Elections and all parties who ensured that the elections were held peacefully, except for a few isolated incidents.
We have been living in an election atmosphere and economy almost since 2022, with the general elections held in May last year, the Presidential elections completed in two rounds, and the local elections we have just left behind. For this reason, in the 100th anniversary of our Republic, we fell behind the level of contemporary civilizations that our country deserved. Now the elections are complete. Under normal circumstances, there will be no elections for four years. So now It is time to return to our real agenda.
Our agenda is now our employees, retirees, children, and young people who left the universities they attended or could not attend at all due to housing and other economic problems. Our agenda is our citizens living in container cities due to the earthquake disaster we experienced last year, Istanbul, where there is a risk of collapse of not only a city but also the country's economy in a possible major earthquake, and our Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian provinces that cannot escape the last places in development and competitiveness. Our agenda is gender inequality, climate crisis, green transformation, our SMEs falling behind their European competitors in digitalization, wars right next to us, stagnation in our export markets, and the refugee problem.
“ECONOMIC TRANSFORMATION IS POSSIBLE WITH INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY AND EDUCATION REFORMS”
Although most of our problems seem to originate from the economy, structural transformation in the economy is only possible with an independent judiciary and a strong education reform. Therefore, we must embrace education and democracy for economic development. For this, the rule of law must be strengthened, the independence of the judiciary must be guaranteed, international norms and conventions must be complied with, and our education system must be adapted to the skills and competencies required by our age.
As TÜRKONFED, the largest independent business organization of our country, which turned its main route to education in the second century of our Republic, we continue to take responsibility in this process as always; We are ready to serve as a bridge between the public, local governments, private sector and non-governmental organizations. The day is a day of unity and solidarity. Our common denominator is republic and democracy.”
