Dervis: I Will Try To Unite Central Left

ANKARA (A.A) - 10.08.2002 - Kemal Dervis, who resigned from State Ministry on Saturday, said that he would try to unite the central left.
Announcing his resignation to press members in a news conference at Treasury Undersecretariat, Dervis said that citizens also want to see the central left to get united.
''Some people say that citizens can unite the central left by their votes. It is not that easy. When you have 15-18 different political parties, how can the citizens unite them? I suppose the help and leadership of the political personnel is necessary here. If no strong government which will work in harmony is not formed on November 4, how can we do our tasks fastly in the coming period? If we take into consideration the election law, 40 percent or 50 percent of the peoples' votes won't be reflected to the parliament. It means our citizens will vote for certain parties, but these parties won't be represented in the parliament. If the parliament reflects only 40-50 percent of the total votes, then the legitimacy of a government to be formed by such a parliament will be in question. We must prevent that,'' Dervis said.
Dervis noted that he wants a formation in central left which has modern, social and liberal understanding and which can come to power on its own. ''I will try to do that,'' he said.
Dervis said that he was actually not a politician but an economist and has been working on economy policies for 22 years. He said that he has been involved in the science of economy for all these years and sometimes taught at universities. He said politics is a new field for him and he is dealing with politics in order to recover Turkey's economy.
''We have to lighten up the load on people that is caused by the economic crises. I won't do politics for the sake of politics but I want to be in an environment which can produce economic solutions,'' Dervis said.
Dervis said politics should be like sports. ''Teams compete but later they shake hands. I think we should stop accusing and blackening people. We should put forward solution proposals and discuss them in front of people. Our country will benefit if we detach ourselves from a politics based an enmity. This is causing pessimism among our people,'' he said.
''I don't have any negative emotions against anyone. We should adopt a more positive attitute to help people. Please wish me luck,'' he said.
Dervis who was appointed as the State Minister in charge of Treasury early March, 2001 had announced the Transition to Powerful Economy Program. He has been continuing his post for 17 months.