Ata alliance to draw road map for runoff, says Sinan Oğan

ANKARA

Sinan Oğan, who entered the election as a non-partisan presidential candidate from Ata Alliance, has emerged as a game changer in the landmark May 14 polls, as he surprisingly took around 5 percent of the vote and stopped his rivals from winning outright.

Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader and Nation Alliance’s presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu held a phone call to congratulate Oğan on the night of the May 14 elections.

“In the next one or two days, I will have quick talks with the ATA Alliance leaders and our base. Accordingly, we will determine a conclusion. We will reveal our roadmap according to the status of this conclusion,” he said in a statement on May 14.

In a separate televised statement on May 14, Oğan reminded his argument that the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and the Free Cause Party (HÜDA PAR) would not be key in these elections and Turkish nationalists would be the determinant of these polls.

Explaining his strategy before the elections for the case of a second round, Oğan had revealed that he would have demands.

“We will discuss our demands with the parties we sit at the table with. Of course, we will not be partners for free. We will have demands like [taking over some of the] ministries,” he said in a YouTube broadcast on May 11.

He also claimed that they would determine the outcome of the second round and announced that they would consult their grassroots about the candidate they would support for the runoff.

Oğan has prepared reports for Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli on foreign policy and security issues since 2006. In 2011, he entered the parliament as MHP’s Iğdır deputy.

Oğan announced that he would be a candidate for the leadership of the MHP after the nationalist party’s loss of votes in the Nov. 1, 2015, elections. He wanted to run for leadership at the congress of MHP in 2016 but was expelled from the party along with some other dissidents. He returned to MHP after his expulsion court case was accepted.

The electoral alliance consisting of the Victory Party, the Justice Party, the Ülkem Party and the Türkiye Alliance Party decided to support Oğan’s candidacy.

In his election campaign, Oğan pledged to send the refugees back to their homeland.

Born in Iğdır in 1967, Oğan graduated from Marmara University’s Department of Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. in International Relations and Political Science from Moscow State University of International Relations MGIMO.

Between 1992 and 2000, he worked as the deputy dean and lecturer at the Turkic World Studies Foundation, Faculty of Business Administration of the Turkic World in Azerbaijan. In the same period, he simultaneously carried out the duty of TIKA Azerbaijan representative.

He founded TÜRKSAM, one of the strategic analysis and think tanks, in 2004. Oğan still continues his duty as the president of TURKSAM.