https://ahvalnews.com-Turkey’s main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on Tuesday announced his candidacy in the presidential polls scheduled for 2023 as he reiterated a call for snap elections, Turkish broadcaster TGRT reported.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader made the remarks during a general assembly meeting in parliament, TGRT said, in a first concrete statement on his candidacy after weeks of ambiguous answers to questions on his nomination.
“Let there be snap elections and Erdoğan face me,’’ the CHP leader said. “Let me see him at the ballots. This is my political call. The people of this nation do not have the strength to wait for the (scheduled) elections.’’
Kılıçdaroğlu went to say that a decision on snap polls should take place immediately, “sending the Turkish president to the ballots.’’
The next parliamentary and presidential elections are 18 months away in Turkey, where the government is seeking to steer the country’s worst economic crisis in the nearly 20-year rule of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Soaring inflation and the plunging lira have dealt a blow to Erdoğan and his government’s popularity, according to opinion polls.
Erdoğan’s management of the economy, which has included ordering the central bank to cut to repeatedly cut interest rates, despite rising consumer inflation, has pummelled investor confidence in Turkey and hurt his government’s popularity.
Turkey’s ruling alliance would fail to garner enough support to grant Erdoğan a presidential victory should the presidential elections be held immediately, according to a January survey by İstanbul Economics Research polling company.
The CHP leader in December had said he would be honoured to be a presidential nominee should the opposition Nation Alliance greenlight his candidacy, BBC Turkish reported.
The Nation Alliance includes the main opposition CHP, the nationalist Good Party (İP), and the smaller Islamist Felicity Party (SP).