Muharrem İnce, opposition contender for the 14 May Turkish presidential elections, has withdrawn his candidacy, avoiding the potential of splitting the anti-Erdoğan vote and significantly improving the opposition’s chances of securing a victory against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
İnce targeted his critics in a speech on Thursday, saying, “They claimed I am doing the job of Erdoğan, that I took money from the palace, but I am now withdrawing my candidacy, and I am doing this for my country, so that those who slander me have no excuse in case of a defeat in the election against Erdoğan.”
İnce was a former candidate of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) in the 2018 presidential polls, but this year the party chose Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu as its candidate, with other opposition parties uniting behind him as part of the Nation Alliance. Even the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which is not a part of the Nation Alliance, endorsed Kılıçdaroğlu, leaving İnce as a divisive figure for the opposition.
While İnce had a fair chance of affecting the opposition’s prospects, he did not have a realistic chance of winning, as his support had decreased in the weeks leading up to the election. At the start of the campaign, he was polling at around 15 percent, but that decreased to between 1.5-4 percent, which was still enough to carry the presidential elections to a second round. The opposition’s unity behind Kılıçdaroğlu remains crucial to achieving a first-round victory against Erdoğan.
