AKP’s Youth head jacuzzi video speaks volumes about country’s level of corruption

On Sunday, in a shocking video posted on Twitter from multiple accounts, Turkish leader   Mehmet Salih Saraç was seen sharing a message from his Jacuzzi, which said,"O poor people, you bastards, do not disturb me, because I am enjoying my time."  The AKP Provincial Youth Wing President‘s video which sparked controversy and outraged people, led to multiple negative comments on social media.

Explaining the intent of the video, which appeared as a huge coverup, the AK Party Chairman said: “My dear Şanlıurfa nurses, precious press members. A joke I made in my WhatsApp group 2 years ago has been maliciously shared on social media. I have never been derogatory or degrading towards people. When the video is watched with a pure and clean intent, it will be seen that it is a video shot for irony purposes and never intended to humiliate a part of the society. At this point, I can see that the issue has damaged our case, our party and our youth organizations. For this reason, I acknowledge that I left the position of AK Party Şanlıurfa Provincial Youth Branch Presidency, apologizing to my people and to my lawsuit friends who have set their hearts on this case. ”

Many questioned the sense of humour of AK Party Youth head, which seemed anything but sarcastic. More than empathising with poor, and resolving their crisis the video showed how Turkish leaders made fun of their misery. The video was apparently reflecting the true side of Turkish leaders who literally doesn’t want to be bothered about the country’s dwindling economy, its increasing rate of unemployment, poverty and plight of people which was getting worse. 

To get a hint of the country’s level of corruption, one only needs to compare how its foreign reserves have vanquished over the years leading to major fall in Lira contrary to pockets of AKP leaders which seemed to be only growing deeper and deeper. On Monday, Turkey's Central Bank reported that its current account balance had $3.76 billion deficit in May. It was a major deterioration in its balance of payments from a $1.07 billion surplus in the same month last year.

According to the report published by Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) its March 2020 with regard to Household Labor Force Survey, the unemployment rate has dropped to 13.2 percent with a 0.9 point decrease in March. According to the details carried out by the World Socialist Web Site, deep examination of TurkStat data revealed that the government tried to manipulate and hide the real numbers in the report ‘in an effort to hide the pandemic’s impact on the economy as social opposition grows in the working class to the government’s response.

The WSWS added that despite ‘growing unemployment, hunger and poverty during the pandemic, the Erdoğan government continued to transfer billions to the Turkish bourgeoisie’. It unveiled that  ‘the Treasury borrowed 67.2 billion lira on financial markets in April, after announcing that it would borrow 28.2 billion lira. This amount rose to 76.5 billion lira in May’. The Turkish government poured billions in pockets of the ruling class with low-interest rate loans and stimulus packages, though the true burden of this debt fell upon the poor and the working class in form of hike in taxes and inflation.