This is an unprecedented announcement for a presidential candidate in Turkey. The candidate of the Turkish opposition alliance in the presidential election, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, has for the first time publicly mentioned his membership of the Alevi minority, shaking up a major taboo in Turkey.

"I think it's time to discuss with you a very particular, very sensitive subject (...). I am Alevi, I am a sincere Muslim," he said in a video posted Wednesday night (April 19th) on Twitter.

The Alevis, whose rites and rules differ from those of orthodox Islam, have been victims of discrimination and massacres in the past in Turkey, and remain considered heretics by some hardline Sunnis.

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Some Sunni conservatives even refuse to eat a dish cooked by an Alevi, considering it "impure".

Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, who could become Turkey's first Alevi president, promises if elected in May to put an end to the discrimination and "sectarian disputes that have made suffer" Turkey, a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim but constitutionally secular.

Before his candidacy, observers claimed that Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, born in the historically rebellious region of Dersim (renamed Tunceli in the east), with a Kurdish and Alevi majority, would struggle to convince conservative Sunni voters.

Opposition support

Many opponents of President Erdogan, including among conservatives, welcomed Kemal Kiliçdaroglu's message.

"It is possible to live on these lands without discrimination, in equality, fraternity and peace," said Selahattin Demirtas, former co-president of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), who has been imprisoned since 2016.

"We can end this crooked order together by choosing ethics, justice and sincerity instead of polarization and identity politics," tweeted the Islamist Felicity Party, created by Necmettin Erbakan, a mentor of President Erdogan, but who has become an opposition alliance.

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Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, however, accused the opposition candidate of trying to "victimize" himself.

"It is not we who say that an Alevi cannot be elected (...). That is not a problem for us. We have overcome all that," he said.

Erdogan had in the past targeted the Alevi minority, accusing its members of being "dominant" among judges in Turkey and inventing "a new religion".

During the current campaign, the head of state has not openly attacked his opponent, leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), on his religious identity.

In early April, however, he alluded to it, after Kemal Kiliçdaroglu mistakenly stepped on a prayer mat without removing his shoes.

"Those who do not know the direction of prayer walk with their shoes on the prayer rug. You will show them the right direction on May 14," he said at a rally in Istanbul.

With AFP

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