Turkey Anti-Immigrant Party Leader Endorses Opposition Kilicdaroglu in Upcoming Runoff

Turkey will hold its special presidential runoff election in the coming days after the recent polls saw its major candidates failing to reach the threshold of votes needed to claim victory. The leader of an anti-immigrant party recently announced his endorsement of opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Umzit Ozdag, the leader of the nationalist anti-immigrant Victory Party, on Wednesday, announced that he would be supporting Kilicdaroglu, the leading opposition candidate challenging incumbent Tayyip Erdogan for the presidency. Ozdag’s party received 2.2 percent of the votes in the parliamentary races. Ozdag urged his party’s supporters to vote for Kilicdaroglu in the runoff elections on May 28.

“We have decided to support Mr. Kilicdaroglu in the second round of the presidential elections,” Ozdag told a news conference in Ankara alongside Kilicdaroglu, who is backed by an alliance of six opposition parties.

Ozdag said that he and Kilicdaroglu agreed on a plan to send migrants back within a year “in line with international law and human rights.” Ozdag also said he had similar discussions with Erdogan’s AK Party but ultimately decided not to endorse the incumbent as their plans did not involve repatriating migrants. Kilicdaroglu has sought to gain the support of nationalists as campaigning resumed for the runoffs, pledging to repatriate all migrants if he is elected.

Kilicdaroglu has also pledged to reverse some of Erdogan’s sweeping domestic, economic, and foreign policies, including reversing an unorthodox economic program to address the country’s cost of living crisis.

Ozdag’s endorsement of Kilicdaroglu also follows the endorsement made by nationalist Sinan Ogan, who announced that he would be supporting Erdogan, who seeks to extend his presidency for another term. Ogan fell third in the presidential vote with 5.2 percent.

Ogan endorsed Erdogan on Monday in a news conference in Ankara, saying that his campaign made Turkish nationalists “key players” in the country’s politics. Ogan cited the AK Party’s majority in parliament and the principle of the long-running struggle to fight terrorism as his reasons for endorsing the incumbent. Ogan said that it was important for the elected president to be in the same line as the majority in parliament.

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