After nearly imploding last week, Turkey’s six-party opposition alliance finally succeeded on Monday in nominating Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, the leader of its main grouping, to run in the May 14 presidential election against incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan. for 20 years.
After nearly imploding last week, Turkey’s six-party opposition alliance finally succeeded on Monday March 6 in nominating Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, the leader of its main grouping, to run in the May 14 presidential election against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in office for 20 years.
The alliance of six Turkish opposition parties managed to agree on Monday, March 6, on the choice of a common candidate to face incumbent President Tayyip Recep Erdogan in the May 14 presidential election. This is Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, leader of his main party.
“Kemal Kiliçdaroglu is our presidential candidate,” Temel Karamollaoglu, leader of the Happiness Party, told a crowd outside his party’s Ankara headquarters, where the leaders of the six parties met on Monday.
The leaders of the other five parties in the alliance, including Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, were with him at the time of the announcement.
Presidential and parliamentary elections went ahead as scheduled, despite the February 6 earthquake that killed more than 46,000 and devastated parts of the south and southeast of the country.
Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP, Social Democrat) since 2010, has promised a return to democratic rule if he is elected in May.
“All together we will establish the power of morality and Justice,” Kemal Kiliçdaroglu declared after the announcement.
“We, as the National Alliance, will lead Turkey on the basis of consultation and compromise… Law and justice will prevail,” he added.
The coalition, dubbed the “National Alliance,” nearly imploded on Friday, just ten weeks before the election.
The president of the nationalist Iyi party, second in the coalition, vehemently opposed the candidacy of Kemal Kiliçdaroglu and urged the popular CHP mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem Imamoglu and Mansur Yavas, to run in his place, to what they refused.
After meeting in Ankara on Monday with the two mayors and later with Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, the leader of The Good Party, Meral Aksener, finally took her place at the Alliance table.
Return to the democratic game
For some of the opposition supporters, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, a 74-year-old former senior official belonging to the Alevi minority, lacks charisma in the face of the outgoing head of state, who is running to succeed him.
But Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose popularity has suffered from Turkey’s continuing economic crisis, will have to answer to voters for the slow pace of rescue efforts in the hours after the Feb. 6 earthquake.
Kemal Kiliçdaroglu did not fail to point out these deficiencies, denouncing the “incompetence” and corruption at the head of the country.
While apologizing for the delays in the arrival of aid, the 69-year-old Turkish president has made the reconstruction of devastated areas his guiding principle, promising to build “within a year” about 490,000 homes earthquake resistant.
According to polls, the presidential election on May 14 is shaping up to be the most dangerous since 2003, when he took office as prime minister.
The outgoing president and his party, the AKP, have already seen the Istanbul and Ankara municipalities slip out of their hands in 2019 in favor of the CHP, a severe setback.
And the pro-Kurdish left-wing party HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party), which welcomes Kemal Kiliçdaroglu’s candidacy, may not nominate a candidate this year to favor the opposition alliance, according to Turkish media.
The HDP, the third party in Parliament, obtained 12% of the votes in the last parliamentary elections, and its imprisoned candidate obtained 8.4% of the votes in the 2018 presidential elections.
Until now, the party has remained outside the alliance due to the presence of El Buen Partido, whose line is incompatible with that of the HDP.
The opposition now has less than ten weeks to impose its program and campaign throughout the country.
However, the magnitude 7.8 earthquake on February 6, which devastated 11 of Turkey’s 81 provinces, is posing major logistical problems, as 3.3 million people have had to leave the affected areas.
with AFP
This article was adapted from its original in French
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