A spoiler appears to have entered Turkey’s presidential race. The chairman of the Homeland Party, Muharrem Ince, entered the race on Saturday after collecting the 100,000 signatures required for a nomination to become a candidate for president.
Monday is the last day for a potential candidate to collect signatures.
The entrance into the race of Ince comes about two weeks after Turkey’s opposition coalition of six parties, named Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the group’s largest party the Republican People’s Party, as its candidate to compete against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in elections expected in May that are set to be the toughest challenge yet to his 20 years in office.
Ince was the chief opponent of Erdogan in the 2018 election, but ultimately only garnered 30.6% of the vote to Erdogan’s 52.6%. His entrance into the race means that the opposition vote could be split, giving a boost to Erdogan’s chances to retain his office.