CHP: İhsanoğlu can win if everyone votes in polls

Şükrü Küçükşahin ANKARA

Presidentail candidate Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu (2 R) attends the wedding ceremony of CHP council member Umut Akdoğan (2 L) in Ankara. DHA photo

Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, the joint presidential candidate of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), will be victorious in August elections if the parties can get all their constituents to vote, according to main opposition party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

“I believe in our choice [of candidate] and that we will win. If our citizens, who believe in the parliamentarian system, head to the polls in their entirety, Mr. Ekmeleddin can be elected. Such an election will make the parliamentarian system more powerful,” Kılıçdaroğlu said after meetings with representatives of Alawite federations. The CHP leader admitted that he took a risk in proposing İhsanoğlu as the party’s joint presidential candidate. “I did not put first either myself or my party; I prioritized Turkey,” Kılıçdaroğlu added.

He stressed that voters should go to the polls and said the election was not just a competition of political parties, but concerned the election of the president.

“Nobody should forget that presidents are elected with social consensus,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, underlining that political parties should not consider the process as a “struggle for power.”

İhsanoğlu is a candidate that could be a president for all of Turkey since he appeals to all segments of society, he said. “Conservative audiences had the idea that the CHP would not be able to nominate anyone with the qualification of Mr. Ekmeleddin, but we proved that we will embrace everyone,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

The CHP and the MHP submitted the name of İhsanoğlu to Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek yesterday, thus formalizing his candidacy.