Kilicdaroglu’s center-left Republican People's Party (CHP) is the main Kemalist party in the country, established by the Turkish republic’s founder himself. In recent years it has softened its position on the role of religion in the country and that of Kurds, a sizeable ethnic minority that has long complained of persecution, and from which anti-state militancy has emerged at times. For Sunday’s elections, it courted defectors from Erdogan’s Islamist-leaning AK Party and even received an endorsement from the pro-Kurdish HDP party and its jailed leader.
Somer said Ogan’s policies are anti-immigrant and anti-PKK, referring to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is officially regarded as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. He sees the HDP’s endorsement of Kilicdaroglu as problematic, Somer said, but he is also opposed to Erdogan joining forces with the Islamist Huda Par (Free Cause) party, which is affiliated to the Sunni Islamist Kurdish Hezbollah.
Asked by journalists in March if he would endorse Erdogan or Kilicdaroglu should there be a runoff, Ogan said that his party would look at each candidate’s “national stances and competence” as well as “at the situation of affiliation with terrorism and seeking help from terrorism.”
“We will decide with common sense,” Ogan said. “Common sense shows us that we may not be able to promise heaven, but it's time to close the gates of hell.”
Ogan ran for president as the candidate for the ATA alliance of like-minded nationalist parties. But his political career began with the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), where he spent six years before splitting with it, partly due to its growing closeness with Erdogan’s AK Party, according to Turkish media.
Formerly in the opposition, the MHP joined the People Alliance that is led by Erdogan’s AK Party in this election.
Ceylan Akca, a parliamentary candidate for Green Left Party in largely Kurdish Diyarbakir province, said that Ogan’s votes show the rise of a right-wing, nationalist and anti-refugee wave in Turkey.
“The Kurds have made their decision. They have supported Mr. Kilicdaroglu, and the votes for him are huge in the Kurdish parts of the country,” Akca, who is also tied to the HDP, told CNN. “The Kurdish community has done their part, now it is up to the Turks to protect the country.”
Somer said the election results on Sunday shed light on how polarized Turkey has become.
“When society is divided into two ossified rigid blocs that see each other as an existential threat, that is really hard to overcome,” he said, adding that despite the opposition’s attempts to overcome the nation’s fault lines, it was unable to successfully do so.
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