Youth Matters #4 – Ahmet Davutoğlu

At Youth Matters #4, which took place on Monday evening 20th of March, we hosted Ahmet Davutoğlu, Leader of Gelecek Partisi (the Future Party).

At the event moderated by political scientist Seren Selvin Korkmaz, Davutoğlu addressed questions from young people on a wide range of topics, from excessive alcohol taxes to the visa exemption on which he worked during his prime ministerial term.

Davutoğlu responded to the question as to whether there is a possibility of a crisis similar to the 3rd of March crisis within Millet İttifakı (National Alliance) by affirming that the alliance is strong and that all processes are transparent. Stating that even the AKP (Justice and Development Party) and MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) executives did not know about the details of Erdoğan and Bahçeli’s dialogues within Cumhur İttifakı (People’s Alliance), Davutoğlu underlined how different the two alliances are in this respect.

Regarding the representation of the youth, he stated that the youth shall be represented more in the TBMM (Grand National Assembly of Türkiye) and that politics shall be rejuvenated not only in terms of age but also in terms of mentality. He also mentioned that the upcoming election was a crucial election and therefore the entire opposition shall be target-oriented, and that our expectations may not be fully realized in the process.

Ahmet Davutoğlu, the leader of Gelecek Partisi, became the first Party Leader to sign the Memorandum of Understanding prepared by Arayuz Campaign to remove the barriers before the participation of young people in politics.

MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

I, as Ahmet Davutoğlu, Leader of Gelecek Partisi, hereby undertake, on behalf of our party, for the relevant election period and the following legislative session:

• The lowest candidacy fee will be charged to members of parliament under the age of 30,
• We will allocate at least 10% of the parliamentary seats to young people between the ages of 18-35 through the zipper system,
• No binding agreement will be imposed on young parliamentary candidates at the time of their candidacy and that we will not demand donations or anything else from their salaries in case they are elected as parliamentary candidates,
• Necessary work will be done to adopt an announcement system in which youth organizations can participate in the law-making processes in all commissions in the Parliament,
• University students will be given the opportunity to be interns with our members of parliament for at least one legislative year in a legislative session.

You can watch the entire event on Arayuz Campaign YouTube channel very soon.