The university years that so influenced opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu were as fateful as they were grueling in many ways. From the personal to the romantic to the professional, the character of the future politician was forever impacted by experiences in his early 20s.
For starters, it was during that period that he met his future wife, Sevim Kılıçdaroğlu.
“When I was in my first year of university, I went with my uncle to İzmit [a western province], where I first saw her. She was still in high school,” the head of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, recalled. Sevim Kılıçdaroğlu later started studying journalism in Ankara, where she and Kemal met again in Kızılay Square.
“After I started working, we wrote letters to each other. I wrote her some love poems. My wife still hides them,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, adding that back in the 1970s they had no idea that marriages with close relatives could cause some risks. “It was hard to propose, but I somehow found the courage and proposed to her.”
Love did not keep the struggles of university life at bay, of course. The future political leader had to make do on a monthly stipend of 300 Turkish Liras from his father. After allocating money for movies, books, newspapers and journals, not much of the 10 liras a day was left, he said. Kılıçdaroğlu said he liked to listen to folk music and used to go in his youth to concerts by prominent folk musicians such as Aşık Mahsuni Şerif and Ruhi Su. “They were singing political songs and we went and listened,” he said, adding that he also likes to listen to Western and Turkish classical music.
Getting by was easier in his first years of school, when Kılıçdaroğlu lived with his uncle. The hard times really started in his final year, when he lived in the dormitory.
“My friends and I never ate breakfast, only lunch and dinner. As kebab was the cheapest food, we were frequenters of the restaurant Kebab 49,” he said. One night, when he and his friends did not even have enough money for kebab, one member of the group remembered that another friend of theirs had recently returned from his hometown, which meant he had probably brought something to eat with him. This friend, however, was living in another dormitory.
“We walked many kilometers to reach that dormitory and cooked cracked-wheat bulgur and then went home by foot as well,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, adding that his family’s budget was so limited that he could not even visit his hometown of Tunceli during his university years and did not see his grandfather for years after.
Starting work as a tax auditor
The day Kılıçdaroğlu passed the exam to become a tax auditor, he ran from Ankara’s Ulus neighborhood to Kızılay Square to tell his friends who were in the National Library. It was a tough exam, for which he had studied hard. “My friends congratulated me,” he said.
The new auditor’s first posting was in Istanbul. Though as CHP chief he is rarely seen without a tie, Kılıçdaroğlu did not even have one when he started working at the office building in Istanbul’s Karaköy district. One day one of the accounting “üstas” (masters) at work asked him to wear a tie and shave his face because they would be visiting a taxpayer in the afternoon. Kılıçdaroğlu went to a barbershop and bought a tie.
“Later, I owned many ties. In Antalya, even in that hot weather, we wore ties. Only on the weekends did I not wear ties,” he said.
The relationship between younger and more experienced auditors was a strict one, Kılıçdaroğlu recalled. “There is a kind of a military hierarchy between masters and subordinates. For instance, when we were in Antalya, we went to a restaurant, and we ate what the master ate,” he said. “One master ordered pumpkin desert, and I ordered the same, even though I disliked it. But it was one the most beautiful pumpkins I had ever tasted. After that I liked it.”
Kılıçdaroğlu was also sent to France for language education, which was like a holiday for him. During a one-year stint at Poitiers University, he visited the Netherlands, Germany and Britain.
Kılıçdaroğlu’s appointment to Istanbul created changes as well in the life of his wife, who everyone calls “Sevim” even though her official identification says her name is “Selvi.” She left school when her husband was appointed to Istanbul. Later, there were some amnesties offered for students who had quit school, but Sevim Kılıçdaroğlu could not resume her education at this point because the couple had children. “She still sometimes blames me for this,” her husband said.
The relationship suffered other trials. Kılıçdaroğlu said the most painful day in his life was when he lost his first child. “When I was doing my military service, my wife went to Ağrı [an eastern province] to be with my parents, and gave birth to our first son, Devrim Fırat,” he said. “When he died in Istanbul, he was not even a year old.”
In his work as an auditor, Kılıçdaroğlu faced potential political conflicts, but eventually received political opportunities as well. When he returned to Turkey after his stint in Europe, the head of the Tax Audits Board, Niyazi Adalı, came to his house and asked if he was even detained when he was a student. Adalı asked this because the Income Department’s general director, Aykon Doğan, was looking for a hardworking tax auditor to be employed in Ankara, and a clean police record was crucial. Fortunately, despite his political involvement in leftist causes, Kılıçdaroğlu had never been detained. His origin, however, created some obstacles to hurdle.
When Doğan learned that Kılıçdaroğlu was from Tunceli, he thought this might lead to negative reactions from soldiers. “Where did you find a Tunceli local?” he asked his colleagues, who responded that he had asked for a hardworking tax auditor, and they found one. Kılıçdaroğlu and Doğan met in Istanbul, and the general director told him to get ready because they were going to go to Ankara the next day.
For eight months, Kılıçdaroğlu did nothing in Ankara. But one day, Doğan asked him to write the text for a speech and Doğan liked what he produced. “Later, an important part of my life was preparing speeches for ministers and general directors,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.
