Two opposition parties continue consultations on presidential elections

ANKARA

Bahçeli and Kılıçdaroğlu met at Parliament on May 30. AA Photo

With less than a month for the announcement of presidential candidates, the two largest oppositional parties continued June 4 their consultative meetings with trade unions and civil society to find out “what kind of president the people prefer?”

Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahçeli toured a number of trade unions, the chamber of commerce and other representatives of civil society. The two leaders came together last week to discuss on what grounds they could agree on a joint candidate to stand against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s potential candidacy.

“We are not seeking polarization. We want to create a large societal consensus. It’s not right to appoint a presidential candidate with attempts of polarization,” Kılıçdaroğlu told reporters.

Bahçeli, in his separate meetings on June 4, underlined that the qualifications of the next president was much more important than his or her name. “The MHP wants stability in Turkey. It does not want polarization and division in Turkey. It is against deepening the polarization and the division through tension politics,” he said.

He recalled that the MHP has not voiced any candidates so far and is planning to announce their candidate only after concluding consultations. Bahçeli emphasized the need to reach an agreement on their candidate in order to not squeeze the country between 51 percent and 49 percent.