For newly elected member of Turkish parliament Uğur Işılak—a singer turned politician—a campaign promise has proven difficult to uphold.
“I’m not going to the parliament to sleep,” Işılak told the newspaper Türkiye before the general election in June, vowing to work tirelessly to improve culture and arts-related legislation. But at the third session of parliament that he has attended this week (July 29), the new deputy from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) promptly dozed off.
The session was an important one, as parliament was discussing terror attacks in Turkey, Hurriyet Daily News reports.
Işılak emerged in the public eye as a politician last year when he begun adapting the lyrics of traditional folk tunes into political jingles, including tributes to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu.
He has also, separately, faced backlash for a comment that he said in 2012: “In her heart, if every feminist does not have the feeling of being chained to a husband or a man, being his slave … or belonging to him, she should come and face me because this is in the nature of every woman,” according to Hurriyet.