Memleket Party chairman Muharrem İnce and Ata Alliance candidate Sinan Oğan have entered Turkey’s presidential race as the third and fourth candidates who will stand in the country’s upcoming elections on May 14. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Republican People’s Party Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu had previously declared their candidacies in the upcoming contest. İnce reached the 100,000 required signature quota on Saturday evening, while Oğan reached the number on Sunday (March 26), marking a new chapter in the presidential race just seven weeks before polls open.
İnce and Oğan occupy different corners of the Turkish political spectrum. Oğan’s coalition, the Ata Alliance, consists of four small right-wing parties with shared nationalist, anti-immigrant leanings. Oğan himself was formerly a member of parliament for the National Action Party (MHP), Turkey’s most famous ultranationalist political party that currently forms a coalition with President Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party. Oğan left the MHP in 2017. Another member of Oğan’s Ata Alliance, Zafer Party Chairman Ümit Özdağ, had also departed from the MHP a year earlier.
Muharrem İnce is a former long-time CHP member who ran as the party’s candidate against President Erdoğan in Turkey’s most recent presidential elections in May 2018. İnce received a trouncing from the president, finishing with just over 30% of the vote compared to Erdoğan’s 52%. Although CHP Chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu endorsed İnce’s bid to unseat Erdoğan, the relations between the two men later soured as İnce attempted to take over CHP leadership from Kılıçdaroğlu. İnce announced his official departure from the CHP in February 2021 and formed the Memleket Party in May of the same year. The former presidential candidate is seen as a threat to Kılıçdaroğlu especially among Gen-Z voters and CHP supporters disillusioned by Kılıçdaroğlu’s long tenure at the head of the party.
The official entry of two extra presidential candidates into the race over the weekend significantly increases the odds of May’s contest proceeding into a second round. If no candidate succeeds in winning 50% of the vote, the election will proceed into a second round run-off. While numerous recent polls have shown Kılıçdaroğlu winning a slim majority against Erdoğan, the entrance of two extra candidates will make this significantly more difficult for the opposition leader. İnce in particular is expected to pull major votes from Kılıçdaroğlu as the two occupy a similar center-left position on the Turkish political spectrum.
Kılıçdaroğlu and other opposition leaders have been adamant about their desire to win the contest in the first round. A hypothetical second run-off round in June could be complicated by the Feast of the Sacrifice (Kurban Bayramı) holiday, Mecca pilgrimages, and university exams. Furthermore, there is concern among many in the opposition that a drawn-out election season could give President Erdoğan and his supporters an opportunity to put their fingers on the scales and tip the election in the president’s favor.
Since İnce’s candidacy became official over the weekend, rumors have abounded that Kılıçdaroğlu’s camp may quietly convince İnce to withdraw in exchange for some kind of deal. However, nothing has been made official yet. The CHP head is expected to meet with İnce at some point, although no official details have been announced. Kılıçdaroğlu has said he intends to meet with the leaders of numerous political parties in the lead-up to the election. A meeting last week with the left-wing pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) bore fruit, with the HDP subsequently announcing that they would not run their own presidential candidate which was seen as a major win for Kılıçdaroğlu. While the HDP is not part of Kılıçdaroğlu’s ‘Table of Six’ electoral alliance, securing Turkey’s Kurdish vote, concentrated especially in the country’s southeast, is seen as an important piece in a hypothetical opposition victory.
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If Kılıçdaroğlu does manage to strike a deal that involves İnce’s withdrawal, he must act quickly. İnce has only days left to withdraw from the contest in order for his name not to appear on the May 14 ballot. If the Memleket Party head chooses to withdraw later than March 30, his name will remain on the ballot and any votes for him will be invalidated, likely delivering a significant blow to Kılıçdaroğlu, who is the most probable back-up option for most İnce supporters.
Turkish election law requires smaller political parties who fail to pass the 10% vote threshold in the most recent parliamentary elections to gather 100,000 citizen signatures in order to put forth presidential candidates. İnce and Oğan’s respective parties had been given until 22:00 Monday evening (March 27) by Turkey’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) to assemble the necessary voter signatures in order to run. Another candidate, Fatih Erbakan of the New Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah Partisi), had also gathered some 70,000 signatures before bowing out of the contest and announcing his support for President Erdoğan.
Written for Medyascope by Leo Kendrick
