As a hybrid alliance consisting of a group of parties, each with a different political ideology, and decided to unite on the goal of winning the elections and defeating the ruling party, it is only natural that there is no complete harmony between them on all issues.
However, what is not normal in the case of the Turkish opposition is that it agreed on the goal of defeating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the upcoming elections, but it is still unable to agree on the candidate who should compete with Erdogan.
Above all, it is necessary to acknowledge the strong showing made so far by the six opposition parties by forming an alliance that is unusual in modern Turkish politics and proposes a major political project to abolish the presidential system and return to the parliamentary system.
Consensus on the management of power is usually much more difficult than opposition.
However, the Turkish opposition does not even seem able to show its unity as it should.
If the consensus on the need to defeat Erdogan constituted a strong motive for the opposition to unite, then its continued failure to agree on a unified candidate to run for the presidential race makes the effect of that unity like pouring water on the dirt.
The Turks had bitter experiences with unstable coalition governments before the AKP era, which plunged Turkey into a spiral of political and economic turmoil.
Even many Turks who oppose Erdogan understand that political stability is necessary to improve the economic situation
What makes this failure more threatening to the opposition's ability to win the elections is that it is still unable to solve the dilemma of the joint candidate, while only 6 months remain before the election.
This inability also allows President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more room to project power and define the agenda of the opposition coalition rather than the opposition itself.
Erdogan has repeatedly called on the opposition to present its candidate for the presidency, but he certainly does not seek to help it in its crisis as much as he desires to deepen it.
The joint candidate crisis is not only about the issue of the opposition agreeing on a unified figure to rival Erdogan, but also shows that a coalition of 6 parties cannot bring about long-term political stability in the country if it actually comes to power.
This issue is very important in Turkish politics.
The Turks had bitter experiences with unstable coalition governments before the AKP era, which plunged Turkey into a spiral of political and economic turmoil.
Even many Turks who oppose Erdogan understand that political stability is necessary to improve the economic situation.
Fears of potential political chaos may not radically change, but it will certainly prompt a wide segment of Turks in the remaining period of the elections to think more about the feasibility of political change if the opposition differences persist.
It seemed that the opposition was now seeking to re-show unity by employing the guilty verdict against the mayor of Istanbul's Greater Ekrem Imamoglu to rally its voters and hide its failure to agree on a presidential candidate.
However, what the opposition assumes is an opportunity to breathe again may deepen its internal crisis.
Ekrem Imamoglu is a recent figure in politics, but he gained great political standing after winning the mayoralty of Istanbul in 2018 and emerged as a potential candidate to compete with Erdogan for the presidency.
However, his ambition to run collides with the leader of the opposition Republican People's Party, Kamal Kilicdaroglu, who presented himself as the party's candidate for the presidency and sought in the recent period to remove Imamoglu and the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavash, from his competition, but he is still unable to persuade the rest of the opposition parties to adopt his candidacy.
While Imamoglu emerged as a victim of political exclusion after the conviction, he treats it as an opportunity to refloat himself as a presidential candidate.
Within the opposition coalition, Meral Aksener, leader of the Iyyi Party, stands out as a strong supporter of Imamoglu's candidacy, and she was keen to stand by him in the days following the conviction.
Akşener views Ekrem İmamoğlu's agitation as an opportunity to pressure Kılıçdaroğlu to back down his candidacy, but it risks more side conflicts within the opposition at a critical time.
After days of remaining silent, Erdogan came out to respond to the opposition's accusations of influencing the judiciary in the Imamoglu case.
Some prominent officials of the ruling Justice and Development Party criticized the opposition's haste in asserting that the judicial ruling would lead to a political ban on the mayor of Istanbul, and called on it to await the Supreme Court's ruling on the appeal case against the ruling.
Given that Erdogan is practically dealing with Kilicdaroglu as his rival candidate in the elections, the political logic assumes that Erdogan's interest conflicts with the re-floating of Ekrem Imamoglu's candidacy.
However, the repercussions of the ruling should be viewed in terms of its primary political consequence, which is that it is already deepening the crisis of the opposition coalition.
What seems clear so far is that Kilicdaroglu does not show any intention of backing down from his candidacy and treats the battle he is waging to prove his candidacy as an existential struggle for his political legacy before anything else.
The Republican People's Party is the main component of the opposition coalition, and fueling the crisis within it over the presidential candidate will only further spoil the situation for the opposition as a whole and improve Erdogan's chances of winning the elections.
But Kilicdaroglu has become vulnerable to more pressure within the party and from the rest of the opposition coalition.
While other opposition parties realize that such pressure will not break Kilicdaroglu's stubbornness, they may treat Imamoglu's re-floating as a bargaining chip in the power-sharing game.
Whatever the real motives of the Turkish opposition leaders in embracing Akram Imamoglu, the result is the same, which is more weakness and internal conflicts.
Taking into account that the judicial path to convict Imamoglu will play a decisive role in the process of selecting a joint candidate within the opposition coalition, the risks will increase for its options in the remaining period of the elections.
In the event that Kilicdaroglu decides to back down from the candidacy under pressure, the political path will be open to the mayor of Istanbul to win the opposition’s candidacy.
However, the possibility of a Supreme Court decision confirming the conviction in the remaining period of the elections or shortly before them will lead to the invalidation of this candidacy and thus put the opposition coalition in front of a crisis at the last moments.
The nomination of the mayor of Ankara may be an appropriate way out, but it certainly will not lead to greater harmony within the six-party alliance.
The worst option is to play in overtime to win the match, and this is exactly what the Turkish opposition is doing.