İYİ Party suggests alliance in second round of 2019 presidential election

ANKARA

The İYİ (Good) Party has suggested an alliance between opposition parties in the second round of the 2019 presidential elections may happen in order to reduce President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chances of winning.

“According to opinion polls, Erdoğan will be elected as president in the first round of elections if Meral Akşener [chairwoman of İYİ Party] does not run for president,” Nuri Okutan, a senior İYİ Party official, said at a conference on Dec. 15 in Istanbul.

“Our proposal is that every political party will nominate its own candidate in the first round but will later support an opposition candidate who will run in the second round,” he added.

Turkey will hold simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections in November 2019 in line with the April 2017 referendum that shifted the current parliamentary system into an executive-presidency model. The president will have to garner 50 percent plus one to be elected and if no other contender can win in the first round, those who get most votes will race in the second round.

Opposition parties have been mulling ways to stop Erdoğan winning the upcoming elections.

The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Akşener’s previous party, threw its support behind the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the April referendum, supporting constitutional amendments.

Akşener announced that she would run for presidency, but the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has not yet announced whether he would run against Erdoğan.

Unlike the 2014 presidential elections, the CHP and other political parties will most likely not nominate a joint candidate.