After years of being governed by AKP mayors, the municipality of Muş will now be governed by the DEM party in the local elections on March 31. The DEM party co-mayors who took office are trying to pay off the municipality’s debts on the one hand and meet the needs of the population on the other.
Muş Municipality Co-Mayor Sırrı Söylemez, in his assessment of the municipality’s work, told ANF: “Since our party participated in the 1999 local elections, we won the municipality for the first time as the DEM party. We took to the streets with our people in a period of four months. We visited every street. Our people are happy. We made our people feel that the municipality belongs to them and that they should take care of it. No matter what happens, the city belongs to all of us. The municipality is not private property. It belongs to the people. We opened the doors of the municipality that were previously closed. We meet with our people every day and listen to their problems.”
“The biggest problems are unemployment and migration”
Co-Mayor Söylemez said, “As the central government has not made the necessary investments in the industrial, agricultural and livestock sectors, unemployment is at its highest. We are also experiencing migration due to unemployment. We started small-scale works to stop this migration. We prepared our projects and submitted them to the necessary institutions. We accelerated our work to solve the unemployment problem. Before we came to power, there was a city that was particularly yearning for its own language. We currently have a project in the field of language. We will establish our art and culture congress center. There, we will provide all the necessary opportunities to all languages and peoples living in Muş, especially the Kurds, to keep their cultures alive. In this area, we changed our municipality sign for the first time and hung our Kurdish sign. This was welcomed by our people. We are really struggling with debt. We want to help women and young people in the field of employment. With our cooperation project, we want to create a small employment area.”
“We are trying to cover the AKP’s debts”
Söylemez said that the previous mayors had not provided service to the people, adding, “Since the day we came to office, our people expected service from us and conveyed their demands. We are working to implement these demands. Our goal is to repay the large debts from the AKP period. We currently have debts to the provincial bank and deductions are made from the income. When these debts are repaid, we will implement the many projects we have prepared.”
The state has a big deficit here because it is not making the necessary investments. The central government must take steps in this regard. We do not want our people to leave. Since we took office, we have repaired areas where people feel comfortable and their daily lives are easier. We have worked to ensure the cleanliness of the city. We have fulfilled our promise of a city restaurant and the project phase is complete. We have accelerated our construction work. We will build all our roads. We are working to reduce traffic congestion. We have corrected the salaries of our workers and made the necessary increases. Now everyone is aware that the municipality belongs to them.”
