Shortly before the presidential election in Turkey, one of the four candidates surprisingly took his hat out of the ring. This increases the probability of a decision in the first ballot.
Three days before the presidential elections in Turkey, the politician Muharrem Ince withdrew his candidacy. The reason given by the 58-year-old was a character assassination campaign against himself, referring to alleged sex pictures of him that have been circulating for a few days. According to Ince, the Turkish state failed to protect him.
Does Ince make Kilicdaroglu president?
Ince had no chance of winning the elections. Polls recently saw the head of the Fatherland Party at a good two percent. However, he could help the candidate of the opposition six-party alliance, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, to win the election by withdrawing.
Ince is a declared opponent of the incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and was seen by his supporters as an obstacle for the Social Democrat Kilicdaroglu to win directly in the first ballot. In the statement on his withdrawal, Ince said that if the opposition lost in Sunday’s election, they would blame him. “I don’t want them to have an excuse.”
Ince had already started in 2018
In the past few days, several representatives of Ince’s Fatherland Party had already vacated their posts, pointing out that their party leader’s candidacy could have a negative impact on Kilicdaroglu’s chances. Despite the withdrawal, Ince’s name will appear on Sunday’s ballot papers. He is also listed on the slips for voters abroad.
Ince had already taken part in the 2018 presidential election as a candidate for his former CHP party and was defeated by Erdogan. He founded the Fatherland Party in 2021 and, with his candidacy for the presidency, stole votes from the opposition alliance’s common candidate, Kilicdaroglu.
About 64 million eligible voters
Polls recently put CHP leader Kilicdaroglu between two and ten percentage points ahead of incumbent Erdogan. According to the latest survey by the Koda Institute, Kilicdaroglu is 49.3 percent, Erdogan 43.7 percent. The third candidate, the candidate of an ultra-nationalist alliance, Sinan Ogan, therefore has 4.8 percent of the votes.
64 million people are eligible to vote in Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections. Erdogan has governed the country for 20 years – first as prime minister and since 2014 as president. If none of the candidates get more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round, there will be a runoff between the two best-placed candidates two weeks later.