Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has continued its behind-the-scenes efforts in recent days to convince breakaway candidate and Memleket Party chairman Muharrem İnce to withdraw from the presidential race, a development that would be expected to significantly boost joint opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s chances of winning in the first round. Turkey heads to the polls on May 14 to vote in presidential and parliamentary races. The election is expected to be among the most consequential in Turkey’s republican history, as Kılıçdaroğlu’s joint candidacy threatens to end President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s 20-plus year rule. İnce, the CHP’s 2018 presidential candidate against Erdoğan, has since formed his own party and is expected to draw votes away from Kılıçdaroğlu in May’s contest.
In an interview this week on Habertürk TV, Kılıçdaroğlu said the following regarding his party’s attempts to convince İnce into withdrawing: “I believe we can finish this in the first round. In the end, common sense will prevail. We have made an offer but it was not at our meeting with Mr Ince. I don’t want to go into details. To summarize, yes, the offer was made.” Kılıçdaroğlu had met with İnce on March 29 following the Memleket Party head’s formal entry into the presidential race after reaching the 100,000 signature threshold required of smaller parties. In the initial meeting, the two men had reportedly not discussed a withdrawal deal.
Fikri Sağlar, a CHP member who has been involved in negotiating İnce’s potential exit from the presidential race, released a statement on Twitter this morning (April 6) saying that İnce would not withdraw his candidacy. His statement read “With the permission of Mr Kılıçdaroğlu, I arranged a meeting at the Memleket Party headquarters on April 3rd. In our meeting, Mr Ince informed me that due to the 113,000 signatures collected from citizens and his selection by his own party, it is not possible for him to withdraw his candidacy.”
Even if İnce were convinced to withdraw at this point in the race, his withdrawal would be of limited utility at this point for the main opposition. On March 31, a deadline for candidate withdrawal from Turkey’s Supreme Election Council (YSK) expired, meaning that all candidates who pull out after this point will nevertheless appear on May 14’s presidential ballot. Therefore, it is probable that İnce could still receive a sizable share of symbolic votes on election day even if his candidacy is withdrawn by then, an eventuality that could still deliver a blow to Kılıçdaroğlu’s first-round chances. With this withdrawal deadline in mind, many opposition supporters had hoped that Kılıçdaroğlu would convince İnce to pull out of the race in their March 29 meeting.
It had been expected that the CHP may attempt to engineer a İnce withdrawal through perks such as ministry posts for the Memleket Party in a hypothetical Kılıçdaroğlu administration. Although Kılıçdaroğlu and Sağlar’s comments did not divulge the details of such an offer, CHP attempts to convince İnce to pull out through such overtures appear to have reached an unsuccessful conclusion.
İnce ran as the CHP’s candidate in the 2018 presidential election following the implementation of a new presidential system that was narrowly approved by Turkish voters in a controversial and divisive 2017 referendum that bestowed sweeping new powers in an executive presidency. İnce and the CHP experienced a landslide defeat to President Erdoğan, in which the strongman won over 50% of the vote, thus preventing the contest from proceeding into a second run-off round. After an unsuccessful attempt to take over the CHP chairmanship from Kılıçdaroğlu, İnce left the party in 2021 and announced the formation of the Memleket Party several months later.
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Occupying a similar center-left position on the Turkish political spectrum, İnce’s candidacy is projected to pull votes from Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, especially among Gen-Z and CHP voters disillusioned by Kılıçdaroğlu’s leadership. If no presidential candidate succeeds in winning 50% of the vote on May 14, the contest will proceed to a second round two weeks later, a possibility that the main opposition has been vocally resolute in avoiding. Although many recent polls have shown Kılıçdaroğlu with a lead over Erdoğan, İnce’s entry into the race is likely to chip away at the CHP chairman’s advantage.
Written for Medyascope by Leo Kendrick
