Last Sunday’s historic election served as a disappointment to the opposition as they failed to unseat the 20+ year incumbent Erdoğan in the first round. Erdoğan fell half-a-point shy of attaining majority of vote, triggering a second round, while according to unofficial results, opposition hopeful Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu clocked in 5 points below the President. In an effort to corral the voters with second round mere days away, Kılıçdaroğlu will meet with Victory party chair Ümit Özdağ.
As the second round of elections nears, the opposition has shifted its strategy to hammering at Turkey’s millions of legal and illegal immigrants. Anti-immigration hardliner Ümit Özdağ, the chair of Victory party, had been openly demanding a meeting with Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu since the electoral upset last week. Özdağ’s Victory Party is a part of the ATA or Ancestral Alliance coalition, made up of Victory Party itself, Justice Party, My Country Party, Turkey Alliance Party, which ran Sinan Oğan as their presidential candidate, who secured a little over 5%; a margin Kılıçdaroğlu could use if he is to topple Erdoğan’s two-decade hegemony over the country.
While Özdağ himself did not run as a candidate in this cycle, he has significant pull in the alliance. However, there is no guarantee that Özdağ will throw his weight behind Kılıçdaroğlu. Özdağ and Oğan, both nationalists, have demanded that Kılıçdaroğlu cut his ties with the country’s Kurdish party HDP, on the grounds that they are simply the political arm of the separatist terrorist organization PKK; which the nation’s armed forces have been waging a bloody battle against since the 80’s. The Kurds came out in droves for Kılıçdaroğlu in this election cycle and disavowing the Kurdish vote in favor of the nationalist vote is a dilemma for Kılıçdaroğlu.
Kılıçdaroğlu met Özdağ in his party’s headquarters in the capital. After the brief meeting lasting 1-and-a-half hours, Kılıçdaroğlu and Özdağ held a joint press conference:
“Turkey needs democracy, it needs solidarity”
Kılıçdaroğlu said, “We had a very good and productive meeting with Özdağ. We discussed the problems of Turkey and the problems of the world, and made evaluations. At the same time, I talked to Mr. Özdağ about the views of the leaders of the Nation Alliance, our work, our thoughts on the text of the joint agreement, our thoughts on the constitutional amendment,”
Stating that Özdağ answered his questions in detail, Kılıçdaroğlu continued:
“Turkey needs democracy, it needs solidarity. We must overcome existing problems. In this context, Mr. Chairman will meet with his friends. We communicated our thoughts to the Chairman, in detail.”
After meeting with Özdağ, Kılıçdaroğlu left the Victory Party Headquarters with the slogans “Together we will win”.
“We got detailed answers to our questions”
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Özdağ stated, “We had some questions, we asked them, and we got detailed answers. We will make evaluations based on the answers we have received. We will also make a joint assessment with the other parties of the ATA Alliance and Sinan Ogan and we will share our decision with the Turkish public in a short time.”
No solid answer yet
Despite the ATA Alliance’s decision still being up in the air, the opposition supporters are hopeful that the coalition can come to an understanding; which may very well turn the tide of the election. In the May 14 election, MHP (nationalist party in the ruling coalition), overperformed the polls, indicating a rise in nationalist sentiment in the electorate. ATA’s backing could be the shot in the arm Kılıçdaroğlu needs to get over the finish line; so long as it doesn’t cost him the Kurdish vote.
