While Turkey’s Table of Six electoral alliance has yet to announce their joint presidential candidate to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan this spring, Medyascope reporting yesterday (January 25) indicated Republican People’s Party (CHP) chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as the likely opposition candidate, with an official announcement set for February 12.
Medyascope correspondent and Ankara Bureu Chief Hıdır Göktaş spoke with a high-ranking political official who said the following regarding the as-yet-unannounced opposition candidate: “There will be no general ‘hands up’ vote for choosing the candidate. We will run a brief consultation [in order to choose the candidate]. No one from outside the Table of Six will be chosen. The chairman of the Table of Six’s largest party [CHP] will be the candidate; he is the one most befitting of the role.”
The date of the planned announcement has reportedly been planned to coincide with the first anniversary of the Table of Six’s first meeting, which took place shortly after the alliance was formed on February 12, 2022. Prior to the announcement, a final meeting hosted by the CHP will take place in Ankara. Temel Karamollaoğlu, chairman of the Felicity Party and the eldest member of the Table of Six, is expected to make the announcement.
Pressure has been building in recent weeks for the opposition to announce their candidate, with less than four months to go until the contest. A recent move by President Erdoğan to move the election from June 18, as originally planned, to May 14 has added to this pressure. Other CHP officials including mayors of several CHP-controlled Turkish cities have also reportedly become inpatient for the chairman to make his announcement. While Kılıçdaroğlu leads the Table of Six’s largest party and was instrumental in its formation, polls have consistently shown the CHP leader as among the weakest opposition candidates to face President Erdoğan, with appreciably lower polling numbers compared to other likely contenders such as İYİ Party chairwoman Meral Akşener, Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, and Ankara mayor Mansur Yavaş, both of whom are members of Kılıçdaroğlu’s CHP.
The Table of Six will meet for its 11th time today (January 26), hosted by Akşener’s İYİ Party. Today will be the first time in which the topic of joint candidate selection will be discussed by the six party leaders. The meeting will be the last before the final meeting and expected announcement on February 12.
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The original of the article appeared on January 25, 2023 on https://medyascope.tv/2023/01/25/kulis-ortak-aday-12-subatta-aciklanacak-tek-isim-kilicdaroglu/ . Edited for Medyascope English by Leo Kendrick.
