The first round of Turkey’s key presidential election saw a third nationalist candidate and his alliance potentially emerge as a determining force over the fate of Sunday’s runoff.
In the May 14 polls, incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 49.5 percent of the vote, while the candidate of the main opposition alliance, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, won 44.8 %.
The third candidate, Sinan Ogan, who was not a known figure to the Turkish public before the polls, took 5.2 percent in the election with the support of the newly established ultra-nationalist ATA Alliance led by the Victory Party of Umit Ozdag, an experienced and distant. political right The alliance won 2.4% of the vote in the May 14 parliamentary elections.
With this result, the nationalist candidate and the alliance emerged as possible kings after the first round, that is, until his recent fall.
Analysts say some of his votes came from supporters of a fourth candidate, Muharrem Ince, who dropped out of the race days before the first round, as well as some younger people who dislike Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu.
Mesut Yegen, a professor of sociology at Istanbul’s Sehir University, said there is a bloc of voters who do not want to see any of the main candidates as president and are unimpressed with the main political parties in Turkey today.
“Many of them have secular sensibilities and are therefore against the religiously based conservative politics that Erdogan and his People’s Alliance are pursuing,” Yegen told Al Jazeera.
He added that this group is also upset by the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party’s support for Kilicdaroglu and the cooperation between the two sides.
Ogan, an international relations academic, entered parliament in 2011 with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Erdogan’s closest ally and his party today, before launching an unsuccessful leadership bid in 2015 , after which he was expelled.
He had been away from politics since then until he was nominated as a presidential candidate through an agreement he reached with Ozdag.
Meanwhile, Ozdag, a professor of international relations, is a former deputy leader of the MHP who later held the same position in the IYI Party, which is in Kilicdaroglu’s alliance, before being kicked out and establishing the Victory Party in 2021 .
The party has boosted public support by using ultra-nationalist rhetoric in a country hit hard by its worst economic crisis in decades and embracing an anti-refugee sentiment that is spreading quickly among struggling Turks.
Ultranationalist platform
According to Etyen Mahcupyan, political analyst and writer, Ogan did not have a significant voter base before the polls, and if he did not agree with Ozdag in his candidacy, the latter would have found another contender to run with.
“Ogan’s name may mean something only to people in narrow nationalist political and academic circles, but Ozdag and the Victory Party have established a voter base,” Mahcupyan told Al Jazeera.
The election campaign platform of Ogan and Ozdag strongly opposed Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AK Party).
Their agenda revolved around promising to send millions of refugees into the country back to their homelands and using harsh language towards “terrorist” groups as well as what they allege is corruption. and nepotism in government.
However, in an unexpected twist on May 22, Ogan supported Erdogan in the second round, which led to the end of the ATA Alliance on the same day.
Ogan told a televised press conference that “stability” played a role in his decision, noting that Erdogan’s alliance won a parliamentary majority in polls on May 14 . The politician did not reveal any possible promises made by Erdogan to side with him.
“It is important for the stability of the country that the majority of the parliament and the president are from the same alliance,” Ogan said, calling on people who voted for him to support the incumbent in the second round.
Ozdag disagreed and said Ogan’s position was his own. Two days later, Ozdag threw his weight behind Kilicdaroglu at a joint press conference after the two politicians signed a memorandum of understanding.
The deal includes strong statements about repatriating refugees to Turkey within a year, fighting corruption, nepotism and “terror” as well as protecting the unitary nature of the Turkish state.
different paths
Mahcupyan said the ATA Alliance, which existed for only two months, could have played a key role in the vote, but individual agendas led to its downfall.
“Ogan seems to have thought of his own individual career without worrying about any future voter support as he decides, aiming to return to the MHP and continue politics there. He may see himself as the next leader of the party,” he said.
“However, the Victory Party has grown its organization and gathered a voter base as an opposition party,” the analyst continued.
“Umit Ozdag has goals for his party and wants it to stay afloat after the polls, so he has to side with the opposition, in the same line that the party has been established until today.”
The big question a day before the key vote is what effect this split in the potential “kingmaker” coalition will have on the outcome of the second round.
Yegen said the vast majority of Zafer Party voters would support Kilicdaroglu after the deal between him and Ozdag, and after the main opposition candidate adopted a position attractive to them over the past two weeks.
He added that the remaining Ogan voters can answer in three different ways in the second round. “Some will lean towards Erdogan, others will move in the direction of Kilicdaroglu, while the rest will not go to the polls,” Yegen said.
Mahcupyan noted that most of those who vote for Ogan have no emotional connection to him. “They voted for him because they wanted a third way separate from the other two candidates,” he said.
