Political stances slowly changing at TOBB

The Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges (TOBB) held its general assembly last Saturday. In every general assembly, we try to hold the pulse of the business world by observing the reactions and applause from the audience. When compared to previous assemblies, I can say that in this last general assembly, in general, the political views of businesspeople are changing, but this change is a bit slow. 

This should not be regarded as the entire stance of the business world because TOBB delegates are mostly conservative and nationalist-minded people from Anatolia. We cannot say they represent the big capital. However, this texture of theirs makes a better platform to see the political outlook before the elections. 

TOBB delegates mostly react to epic speeches and those aspects and criticisms that directly involve themselves. For these reasons, the parts of TOBB head Rifat Hisarc?kl?o?lu?s speech that were applauded the most were when he criticized civil servants, when he said civil servants should also be tried when they made a mistake and also the part when he attacked banks. Every year, these topics are applauded.

Other parts, for instance when he mentioned the new industrial revolution, the restructuring of the industry and global harmonization, were not applauded adequately.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu?s speech was dull when compared to President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an?s past speeches. Actually Davuto?lu did the right thing when he lowered his voice and did not speak as enthusiastically as he has in his election campaign speeches. The part of his speech when he said employers will need to let workers go if the minimum wage is increased received the biggest applause. If he had stayed to listen to opposition Republican...

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