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Four days after a video showing him half naked in a bedroom with a woman was put on the internet, Deniz Baykal announced that he is stepping down as the leader of the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP).
The video was uploaded to a site operated by the fundamentalist Islamist newspaper Vakit after midnight while the parliament was holding the last round of voting on constitutional amendments. Baykal’s lawyers filed a complaint with the prosecutors in Ankara and a court banned the video.
The revelation had further political overtones because the woman in the video was Nesrin Baytok, a long time personal secretary of Baykal and now a CHP deputy in the parliament. Both Baykal and Baytok are married with children.
At a press conference at his party headquarters Baykal alleged that “such a plot cannot be staged outside the knowledge and the consent of those in power.”
“I hope that all these events that we have been living through and my resignation would be the beginning of a new wake up call for Turkey,” Baykal added.
CHP will be having its congress on May 22-23 when the party will have to elect a new leader. Party spokesman said Baykal told him that he would not be participating at the congress.
The video that sent shock waves through Ankara’s political circles comes at a critical time when CHP was preparing to take the constitutional amendments approved by AKP votes in the legislative assembly to the Constitutional Court. If the Constitutional Court finds no violation of procedural principles during the debate and voting of the amendments in the parliament, the bill will be submitted to a national referendum in 60 days time.
When the news of the video broke out, CHP deputies expressed their disbelief and claimed that it was probably a “doctored material” to discredit their leader. “Pay attention, this incident happened just before the referendum and our congress. This is a lowly, unethical plot. We shall find out those who hatched this plot and make them account for their action,” said Mehmet Sevigen, a CHP deputy.
