Turkey’s opposition insists it’s united after major party split

Turkey’s main opposition party strained to show unity with its remaining coalition partners on Saturday following a major breakdown among the opposition parties. The political chaos is threatening the opposition’s chances of unseating Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been in power for two decades.

The Republican People’s Party (CHP), the largest among the six parties in the opposition, known as the “table of six,” said that an announcement of the opposition’s candidate for president would be released on Monday. The party had earlier told The Media Line that it was unclear whether the announcement would happen at all.

The opposition was thrown into chaos on Friday after the leader of the Good (İyi) Party, the second-largest party in the coalition, walked away from the group over a disagreement as to who should be the coalition’s presidential candidate.

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İyi party leader Meral Akşener called on the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara, both members of the CHP, to put themselves up as the presidential candidate instead of CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu and Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş have both outperformed Kılıçdaroğlu in polls against Erdoğan, but they risk giving up control of their cities if they run in the presidential elections.

Both mayors quickly expressed their support for Kılıçdaroğlu after Akşener left the coalition.

The CHP responded swiftly to Akşener’s departure, trying to project an image of unity. The party released a picture showing leaders of all the opposition parties sitting together at a table as well as a picture of Kılıçdaroğlu side by side with İmamoğlu, Yavaş, and other CHP mayors.

Aydın Sezer, a political analyst based in Ankara, told The Media Line that he was not surprised that İyi had walked away from the coalition. He attributed İyi’s decision to leave to their resistance to working with Kurdish citizens of Turkey.

Sezer said that the opposition may in fact gain support following the departure of Akşener, who was a distasteful figure to some.

“[They] still have the same chance but we can say that they are a bit stronger,” Sezer wrote in a message to The Media Line.

Kurdish voters may have been turned off by Akşener’s past as an interior minister and as a former member of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Erdoğan’s coalition partner.

Some have speculated that Akşener rejected Kılıçdaroğlu because he is an Alevi Kurd, a follower of the mystical Islamic tradition of Alevism.

A statement from the CHP on Saturday seemed to suggest that the coalition will work to appeal to Kurdish voters.

“We will continue on our way without excluding any member of our 85 million people,” the party’s statement read.

The opposition bloc does not include the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which has polled at about nine to ten percent, approximately one percentage point behind İyi.

The Turkish government has accused the HDP of being connected to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, the US, and the EU. The HDP denies the allegation.

The Twitter account for HDP’s 2018 presidential candidate Selahattin Demirtaş, who has been in prison for more than six years, wrote in a tweet on Saturday, “Together, we will succeed.”

Ryan Bohl, a Middle East analyst for the risk intelligence company RANE, told The Media Line that the Turkish opposition has a long history of allowing minor disagreements to lead to chaos.

In his analysis, the spat will increase Erdoğan’s chances of winning the presidential election, although not necessarily the parliamentary vote.

Turkish citizens cast ballots for president and for members of parliament on the same day. Elections are due by June, although Erdoğan has suggested that the date will be May 14.

Turkey’s dire economic situation, which many blame on Erdoğan, has hurt his approval rating.

Last month’s earthquake also led to strong expressions of anger against the government over what many believed was its failure to enforce construction regulations. More than 45,000 Turkish citizens died in the earthquakes and their aftermath.

The impact that the disaster will have on polling numbers is unclear. Even before the earthquakes, though, surveys showed that the opposition had a strong chance of beating Erdoğan in the presidential vote and winning a parliamentary majority. Recently, though, Erdoğan’s polling numbers have been on a steady upswing.

Some analysts have said that gaining support from the pro-Kurdish HDP would be necessary for the opposition to secure a victory.

Bohl, however, stated that that move could backfire.

“I think that calculation in regards to the HDP remains uncertain. It would make sense for them to cooperate, but the CHP is still trying to lure nationalist and ultranationalist votes to the opposition away from the already weakened MHP. So an overt alliance with the HDP could undermine that and make the split with [İyi] worse,” Bohl said.