The Turkish opposition held summit talks ahead of the decisive round of presidential elections. Opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu performed much worse than the opposition had hoped last weekend and is now considering a new strategy.
Kilicdaroglu of the centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) leads a coalition of opposition parties. He met with five other opposition party leaders on a new approach to defeat incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (69).
Kilicdaroglu, 74, would like to give popular Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu a much bigger role in the campaign, according to media reports. The opposition leader is also said to have fired his public relations team after the first round of elections.
Worse than in the polls
The opposition fared much worse than polls predicted. Kilicdaroglu received 44.9% of the vote, according to the official result, much less than President Erdogan’s 49.5%. Since none of the candidates received more than half of the votes, a decisive election round will take place on 28 May.
Erdogan and his conservative AK Party have dominated Turkish politics for two decades. The president is seen as the clear winner of the second round of presidential elections. Kilicdaroglu hit his rival hard on Wednesday. He called Erdogan a “fake world leader” who is “led by Russia”.
The president was quick to say he was unimpressed by the criticism. He thanked his “close friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin” for extending a grain deal with Ukraine. It happened in part after Turkish mediation. The extension means a diplomatic victory for Erdogan ahead of the next electoral round.
Source: BNR
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