May 24. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The leader of the far-right Victoria Party, Umit Ozdag, announced on Wednesday his support for the opposition figure Kemal Kiliçdaroglu ahead of the second round of the presidential elections, which will be held on May 28 and in which he will face the current president, Recep Tayyip. Erdogan, who aspires to revalidate his mandate.
Ozdag has indicated in a press appearance together with Kiliçdaroglu that both have reached “an agreement” on a political “model” to apply in the country and has reiterated his message against immigration, the main focus of his party. “I ask all the voters who bet on (Erdogan’s) People’s Alliance in the first round to think about whether they want to inherit the Turkey they received from their fathers and mothers,” he said.
“If they want their children to be safe, they should support the policies and politicians that will send thirteen million refugees home in the elections to be held on May 28. Vote for Kiliçdaroglu,” he said, days after the opposition leader promised to expel “all” refugees from the country if he prevails in the second round of the presidential elections, as reported by the Turkish newspaper ‘Cumhuriyet’.
Kiliçdaroglu estimated the number of refugees in Turkish territory at “more than ten million”, although United Nations data suggests that this number is around four million, including more than 3.7 million who arrived from Syria fleeing the war that broke out in 2011.
On the other hand, Ozdag has emphasized that “a country cannot put its economy and security on the right path with thirteen million refugees.” “For this reason, in the run-up to May 14 – the date of the first round of the elections and the parliamentary ones – we asked the Turkish people to support sending the refugees to their homeland,” the far-right has defended.
Ozdag’s announcement comes days after the ultranationalist Sinan Ogan, third in the first round of the presidential elections, gave his support to Erdogan ahead of May 28. Ogan has become a key player for the second round after gaining more than 2.8 million votes in the first, in which he obtained 5.17 percent of the ballots, for 49.52 percent. collected by Erdogan and 44.88 percent harvested by Kiliçdaroglu.
Kiliçdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is running as a unity candidate backed by a six-party coalition, while the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) called on his supporters to vote for him in the presidential ones, to which he did not present a candidate.
