İYİ Party, SP candidates reach 100,000 signatures to run in elections

ANKARA

İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener and Felicity Party (SP) leader Temel Karamollaoğlu have collected the required 100,000 signatures to be a presidential candidate and qualify to run in the presidential elections against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Muharrem İnce and Selahattin Demirtaş. 

As the process for collecting signatures for independent candidates continues, the İYİ Party and the SP’s candidates reached the 100,000 signature threshold as of May 6, qualifying to run in the elections.

Akşener was the first to hit the threshold on May 5. As of May 6, the number of signatures given for her has reached more than 170,000.

Karamollaoğlu collected 100,000 signatures on the third day, passing the margin on May 6.

As a result, the number of candidates running in the presidential elections is now five, as the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) have presented Erdoğan, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has presented İnce and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has presented Demirtaş as their presidential candidate.

According to the new presidential election system, a candidate can either be presented by a political party that has received more than 5 percent of the votes in the previous elections or a political party that has a party group in parliament. They can also be an independent candidate if they have collected signatures from 100,000 citizens.

Voters will continue to give signatures for independent candidates until May 9, as Patriotic Party (VP) leader Doğu Perinçek and Justice Party (AP) leader Vecdet Öz still need more votes to reach their goal.

As of May 6, Perinçek has collected 28,000 signatures and Öz has collected 768.