İnce applies to High Election Board to run as presidential candidate, says he will garner 60 pct of votes

Homeland Party (MP) chair Muharrem İnce has applied to the High Election Board (YSK) to file his presidential candidacy application for the 2023 elections. İnce, who ran as the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) presidential candidate in the last elections and received 30 percent of the votes, claimed he will garner 60 percent of the votes this time.

Monday March 20 2023 04:18 pm

Duvar English

Homeland Party (MP) chair Muharrem İnce on March 20 applied to the High Election Board (YSK) to file his presidential candidacy application for the 2023 elections that will be held on May 14.

İnce, who ran as the main opposition Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) presidential candidate in the last elections and received 30 percent of the votes, claimed he will receive 60 percent of the votes this time during a speech in front of the YSK headquarters.

"Today our vote rate is around 19-20 percent, everyone including the pollsters within the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and CHP also know this. We don't have media. We have young people. We don't have municipality money or Treasury money. We will complete the campaign (at a support level) above 30 percent. The election will go to the second round and I will be elected with over 60 percent of the votes," he said.

“We have a petition ready stating that President Erdoğan cannot be a candidate according to the Constitution. We will also file that objection."

In order for İnce's candidacy to become official, he needs to receive 100,000 citizens' signatures until March 27. According to the Constitution, political parties that have received at least 5 percent of the votes in the last elections or at least 100,000 voters can nominate someone as a presidential candidate.

After losing the 2018 presidential elections, İnce's relationship with the CHP began to deteriorate. In 2021, he resigned from the party in order to found his "Homeland Movement." In the same year, he and several former CHP members formed the Homeland Party as an alternative "Kemalist" party.

As of March 20, which is the first day for the nominations to the presidential elections, İnce, neo-nationalist Patriotic Party (VP) leader Doğu Perinçek, far-right ATA Alliance candidate Sinan Oğan, Sunni-Islamist New Welfare Party leader Fatih Erbakan, and former Prime Minister and President Turgut Özal's son Ahmet Özal officially applied for candidacy to the YSK.

Aside from them, the ruling People's Alliance candidate Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the main opposition bloc Nation Alliance's candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu will run in the elections.