Turkey’s opposition coalition splits over choice of candidate to take on Erdogan

Turkey’s six-party opposition coalition has split over the choice of a candidate to stand against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the May presidential election. 

The Iyi (Good) Party, the second largest among the opposition, has refused to back the head of the largest faction, the Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

His candidacy was agreed on Thursday and was set to be announced on Monday, but Iyi members rejected the deal during a protracted meeting. Unless Mr Kilicdaroglu succeeds in finding new partners, Iyi’s defection could deny the opposition crucial votes in an election predicted to be tight and doom the bid to oust MrErdogan.

Iyi chief Meral Asender has insisted on nominating one or other of the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, Ekrem Imamoglu or Mansur Yavas who, opinion polls show, are more likely to defeat Mr Erdogan than MrKilicdaroglu, (74). He is a retired civil servant who reformed and reinvigorated the CHP but is not considered a match for Mr. Erdogan (69), a charismatic populist who has wielded power for two decades.

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Nominating either of the two mayors could bring its own problems for Mr Erdogan’s opponents. Charismatic and popular, Mr Imamoglu could be barred from the presidency if he loses his appeal against a three-year prison sentence imposed for insulting election officials who tried to deprive him of his victory in the 2019 mayoral election. A former rightist, Mr Yavas could alienate centrist and leftist voters.

Mr Erdogan announced on Wednesday that elections will take place on May 14th, a month earlier than originally scheduled.  Turkey’s cost of living crisis last year sightly diminished the approval ratings of his conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP) and rightist National Movement Party ally (MHP), but he regained some support by granting wage hikes and promising affordable housing.

Widespread anger has, however, been generated over Mr Erdogan’s government’s failure to ensure construction of earthquake-resistant buildings and his sluggish response to last month’s massive quakes in the southeast, an AKP/MHP stronghold.

The earthquakes killed 50,000 in Turkey and Syria and devastated entire cities and towns. The World Bank has estimated damage to homes, hospitals, schools, and infrastructure at $34 billion.

Mr Erdogan has promised to boost the economy and rebuild quickly. By holding elections in mid-May, he seeks to pre-empt a predicted earthquake backlash. “The longer Erdogan waits after the earthquake, the more difficult it would be for him to manage the economic fallout,” pollster Osman Sert told Washington-based Al-Monitor website.

If the opposition coalition of secular nationalists, AKP defectors and others survives, it can be expected to stick to its pledges to return to parliamentary rule by ending Mr Erdogan’s authoritarian presidency, restoring democracy, rebuilding, fixing the economy and reviving relations with the West, which Mr Erdogan has soured.

Opinion surveys conducted at the end of February, well before Iyi’s defection, were contradictory. ALF Research showed the opposition at 47.6 per cent against 35.1 for the AKP/MHP; Aksoy Research gave the opposition 43.3 per cent and the AKP/MHP 38.9 per cent, but the Centre for Social Impact Studies held the AKP/MHP had 44 per cent support while the opposition had 27.3 per cent.