Turkish ultranationalist leader sinan oganwho came third in the presidential elections on the 14th and therefore out of the second round of voting scheduled for next Sunday, announced this Monday his support for the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
“In the second round we have decided to support Recep Tayyip Erdogan,” Ogan declared during an appearance before the press in Ankara, broadcast live by the chain NTV.
Ogan, a little-known ultranationalist former lawmaker who had been expelled from the right-wing MHP party now allied with Erdogan’s ruling AKP, won 5.2% of the vote in the first round, compared to 49.5% for Erdogan and 44.9% of his main rival, the Social Democrat Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.
Although it is far from clear that Ogan’s voters will follow his recommendation en bloc, his explicit support for Erdogan makes the victory of the current president practically certaingiven the narrow margin that separates it from the absolute majority.
Still, analysts question how much weight Ogan’s call carries with his voters. His party has only been around for a few months and most of his supporters would be unhappy with both Erdogan and Kiliçdaroglu.
The 69-year-old president, accused of authoritarianism, fared much better than the polls predicted for the first round.
The party coalition headed by Kiliçdaroglu he also failed to wrest the parliamentary majority from the alliance formed by the AKPErdogan’s Islamist party, and the MHP, in the legislative elections held on the same day, May 14.
This inability of the opposition to gain control of Parliament is one of the arguments cited by Ogan today, since if Kiliçdaroglu were to become Head of State and Government, he would have difficulties managing a country with Parliament against him.
In addition, Ogan was pleased to have induced both candidates to promise a strong-arm policy against Syrian immigrants and refugees.
Kiliçdaroglu, for his part, received on Monday the support of the tiny Adalet (Justice) party, one of the two nationalist formations that make up the ATA alliance, which has supported Ogan in the presidential elections and obtained 2.4% in parliamentary elections.
Adalet only got 0.2% of the total votewhile his partner, the far-right Zafer (Victoria), with 2.2%, has not yet clarified his position, but has publicized a meeting with AKP leaders today as “fruitful”.
In recent days, the opposition parties have challenged the results of approximately 3% of the polls, alleging differences between the signed electoral records and the data that appears in the digitized system, but no substantial modification of the count was foreseen.
Slightly more than one million ballots have been discarded as invalid out of a total of 54.8 million out of almost 61 million registered voters, which corresponds to an electoral participation of 87%, almost one point above that registered in the elections. of 2018 and the highest in two decades.
Among the 1.7 million Turkish citizens who voted abroad, Erdogan obtained a clear majority of 58%, while Kiliçdaroglu barely reached 40%, a phenomenon that had also been observed in previous elections.
Erdogan is determined to remain five more years at the helm of Turkey, a country of 85 million people that has been profoundly transformed during his two decades in power and is now suffering from a severe economic crisis.
(With information from EFE and AFP)
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Source-www.infobae.com