Are they in Erdogan's favour?.. Disagreements over a unified candidate threaten the cohesion of the Turkish opposition

ISTANBUL -

The judicial ruling imprisoning the mayor of Greater Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, for two years and 7 months, and preventing him from practicing politics, sparked the Turkish opposition’s differences over determining the identity of the unified candidate that it will present to confront President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the presidential elections next June, and it seems that the dispute has reached to the brink of collapse.

The debate has been taking place for months in the corridors of the "six-party table", which includes 6 opposition parties, headed by: the Republican People's Party, to choose between party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a member of the party, Istanbul mayor Akram Imamoglu, and other personalities, as a joint candidate for the opposition coalition.

After the court ruling, Imamoglu and his supporters - led by the leader of the "Good Party" Meral Aksnar - expressed their desire to nominate him for the opposition in the presidential elections, but the leader of his party, Kilicdaroglu, has insisted - so far - on the need to be the candidate, which threatens to disintegrate the alliance. hexagonal table", according to observers.

Aksener, the leader of the second largest of the "six-party" parties - last Tuesday - met with the head of the Republican People's Party in their first bilateral meeting in months, away from the meetings of the alliance that includes 6 parties, in a final attempt to persuade Kilicdaroglu to abandon his candidacy, and make way for the candidacy of Imamoglu, according to sources close to both sides.

Istanbul Mayor Akram Imamoglu and the leader of the "Good" party, Meral Aksnar, who supports his candidacy for the presidency instead of Kilicdaroglu (Reuters)

Meeting choice or good thoughts?

Journalist Nevshin Mango, who is close to opposition circles, mentioned in a video clip of her on social media - quoting sources she described as reliable - that Akshnar wants to explain to Kılıçdaroğlu that her "good" party will lose the votes of its voters in favor of other parties if it runs personally for the elections, and that Her party does not want to continue on this path without changing the formula of the "six-party table" coalition and developing a new strategy for it.

The recording of the leader of the parliamentary bloc of the Republican People's Party, Engin Altay, admiring the tweet of journalist Mango, sparked a debate about the escalation of differences even within the ranks of the party.

This prompted Altay himself to post a subsequent tweet, in which he explained that he had "accidentally" liked the journalist's post.

After the end of the working dinner between Kilicdaroglu and Aksnar, no joint or individual statement was issued by either of them, which reinforced the hypothesis of the entrenched dispute between them.

However, the journalist, Elif Chaker, said the next day that she had called Akshnar, and stated that the main topic of the meeting was to ease the discontent of the leader of the "Good Party" after her embrace with Imamoglu on the day of the court ruling against him.

She was very upset by the accusations leveled at her of "political insolence and role-playing".

Chaker confirmed that the meeting was "a dinner to calm her mind."

What is the nature of the dispute?

Opposition supporters are counting on the "six-party table" to announce its joint candidate who will face Erdogan in the elections, but the alliance seems to be at a crossroads, with the escalation of the dispute in particular between Aksnar and Kılıçdaroğlu, which is now seen as a struggle that may end in the collapse of the alliance.

Rustu Haji Oglu, advisor to the mayor of Istanbul, rules out the existence of a conflict between the two political leaders, stressing that "they have much stronger relations than the six-party table, as they are members of the Nation Alliance that won the local elections against Erdogan."

Haji Oglu pointed out - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that the two parties "run many municipalities of large cities together, including Istanbul, and their joint administration did not witness any discussion."

"The debate is limited to who gets the largest number of votes against Erdogan in the upcoming elections," he added.

According to Imamoglu's advisor, Aksener is a politician who comes from conservative traditions, and knows the world of conservative voters closely who make up the base of the People's Alliance, and wants to separate her from Erdogan.

Accordingly, it insists on entering the elections with "a successful young leader like Ekrem Imamoglu, who can influence the secular and conservative blocs at the same rate, because the opposition does not have a second candidate with these characteristics," says Hacıoğlu.

He pointed out that Aksener believes that Kilicdaroglu is "a leader who is far from the conservative segment and has stood against the conservatives in all the elections he lost in the past ten years."

"From her point of view, he is loaded with the negative baggage of the past," he added.

The leader of the Republican Party seems confident of his ability to ease this burden with the support of the conservative parties in the six-party table (Happiness, Future, and Diva).

Aksener also does not think that it is right for the six-party table to emerge by relying on conservative parties, in light of the presence of a strong and influential figure like Imamoglu.

She expects Kilicdaroglu to withdraw from the presidential race, as she did when she said, "I will not be a presidential candidate, I am a prime minister candidate," according to Hajidoglu.

While he ruled out that the dispute would lead to the collapse of the opposition coalition, the advisor stressed that what is happening is "strategic negotiations, not a political struggle."

Future Party leader Ahmet Davutoglu believes that the six-party table can present more than one candidate (French)

Is the hexagonal table broken?

The head of the Future Party, Ahmet Davutoglu - one of the parties of the six-party table - stated in a televised interview that no one has the right to abandon this alliance.

However, he believed that the "six-party" could offer more than one candidate.

Imamoglu's adviser ruled out this possibility.

"If there is more than one candidate, then there is a question whether the six-party table is divided," he said.

For his part, the journalist and researcher specializing in Turkish affairs, Mehmet Tahir Oglu, believes that the collapse of the six-party table due to the dispute over the joint candidate remains a possibility in Turkish political life, but he expected that the opposition would not exaggerate the appearance of solidarity that it wants to portray in the imagination of public opinion.

Tahir Oglu told Al-Jazeera Net, "The challenge here is how far these opposition parties can stand to achieve their goal? Can they overcome differences in order to preserve the table, which may soon turn into a formal six-party alliance?"

While the leaders of the two opposition parties show "a will to preserve the existing alliance between them" through their bilateral meeting, the delay in agreeing on a unified candidate - according to the Turkish journalist and researcher - will be in the interest of President Erdogan, and will be evidence in his hand that this opposition is not strong enough to manage Country.

Tahir Oglu says that Erdogan can link this to the historical memory that the near generation knows about coalition governments in the 1990s in particular, and how they contributed to Turkey's decline and the weakness of the decision-making circle.