Presidential post is vacant: CHP leader

“I have already said that the presidential post was vacant. I thank Erdoğan for proving this,” said Kılıçdaroğlu on May 29 en route to a rally in the Aegean province of Kütahya, referring to President Erdoğan’s appropriation of the AKP deputy candidates running for parliament in the June 7 elections. 

“He says ‘our candidates.’ He emphasizes the AKP candidates as his own candidates. You [Erdoğan] vowed on your honor and dignity; you needed to be impartial. Where is this honor and dignity? What do you understand of honor and dignity,” Kılıçdaroğlu said.

“We are not nominating a so-called mufti as a candidate in Diyarbakır and a gay as a candidate in Eskişehir,” Erdoğan said in an address to a bus company federation on May 28, in an apparent reference to the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) candidates, while also apparently speaking on behalf of the AKP by using the word “we” as a subject. By constitutional law, the president must be impartial and stand in same distance from all political parties and politicians. 

Opposition parties have filed complaints to the Supreme Election Board (YSK), criticizing Erdoğan of holding rallies right before the elections in favor of the AKP. The YSK has rejected all of the complaints to date.