presidential election
Turkey election: Third place gives recommendation for Erdogan
Sinan Ogan supports Recep Tayyip Erdogan (r). photo
© Turkish Presidency/AP/dpa
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is going into the run-off election on Sunday with the support of ultra-nationalist Sinan Ogan, who was defeated by him. Has he already won the race with it?
The third-place finisher in the first ballot for the presidency in Turkey has expressed his support for the runoff election for incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Sinan Ogan called on his constituents to vote for Erdogan in the May 28 vote. Observers had assumed that most of the voters for the right-wing candidate would switch to the Erdogan camp anyway.
As a candidate from an ultra-nationalist party alliance, Sinan Ogan received a good five percent of the vote in the first round, but his electorate is said to be fragmented. It is disputed whether Ogan’s public election recommendation has an influence on those who did not want to vote for Erdogan anyway. Also because the alliance around Ogan announced its dissolution shortly before his speech.
One of the former allies then called Ogan’s statement his “own political preference”. Another ex-alliance member announced his support for the CHP’s Erdogan challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Sunday.
No Assurances
Ogan had previously linked an election recommendation to assurances. He demanded that all refugees had to leave the country or that the “fight against terror” had to be intensified. There were no assurances, he said. However, it has been achieved that the “person” is not “determined” by the pro-Kurdish HDP. Kilicdaroglu started with the support of the HDP. Like Erdogan, Ogan sees her as an extension of the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party PKK. The HDP repeatedly rejects this representation.
Erdogan should benefit from some votes from the Ogan camp. After winning the first round, he will be the favorite in next Sunday’s election. The incumbent landed a good 4.5 percentage points ahead of second-placed Kilicdaroglu. The alliance around the 69-year-old was also able to secure a majority in parliament – a factor that analysts also see as an advantage for him in the runoff election. Should Kilicdaroglu become president, parliament could block many of his decisions.
Kilicdaroglu tweeted shortly after Ogan’s announcement that it was now clear who was on Turkey’s side and who was selling the country, without mentioning Ogan by name. CHP leader Kilicdaroglu called on around 8.3 million non-voters in the country to cast their vote. Erdogan got 2.5 million more votes than Kilicdaroglu in the first ballot.