The nationalist presidential candidate ended up with 5% holding the “key” to the next day in Turkey. “Of course we won’t be… perfect partners”, the nationalist presidential candidate Sinan Ogan, who is now the face of the day in Turkey, has been saying since May 11 – before the polls even opened in Turkey.
The developments justified them.
The same applies to the percentage he secured in the first round: just over 5%.
He automatically anoints him as the regulator of the next day, given the surprise withdrawal of the “guerrilla” Kemalist presidential candidate Muharrem Ince from the presidential race and the inability of the two “duelists”, Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, to pass his “bar” 50% with the first.
In this light, Ogan is seen as the real winner of the first round, partly reflecting the shift of a significant part of the electorate to the neighbor towards the extremes.
A total of one in four Turkish voters chose the nationalists. Be it the meager but pivotal 5.17% of Ogan’s presidential candidacy, which was supported by the “ATA Alliance”: a bloc of four small nationalist parties. Either for the 10% around which the percentages of the nationalist parties fluctuated in the parliamentary elections.
On the side of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) of Erdogan’s far-right partner and leader of the Gray Wolves, Devlet Bahtceli. On the other side of the Good Party (İyi Parti) of the “wolf” Meral Aksener, former “companion” of Bakhceli, now exasperated partner of the Kemalist Kilicdaroglu in the opposition “Alliance of Six”.
The invisible outsider of the nationalists
Of Azeri origin, born in 1967 in the city of Melekli in the province of Igdir in eastern Anatolia as the benjamin of a farming family, Sinan Ogan made a very long journey until he reached the point of being a point of reference in the Turkish political scene, if only for a short while.
With a degree in Business Administration from Marmara University and a PhD in International Relations and Political Science from the Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO), he initially pursued an academic career before entering politics.
As the founder of the Turkish Center for International Relations and Strategic Analysis (TURKSAM), he came down in 2011 as an MHP parliamentary candidate in his hometown, as a personal suggestion of Bahtceli.
Just four years after he was elected to the Turkish national assembly, he was among those who challenged Bahtceli’s leadership after the MHP’s electoral defeat. Deleted from the party. He returned following an appeal to Justice.
In 2016, he joined forces with other internal party rebels – including Aksener – calling for the convening of an extraordinary congress and a change in the statute, with the aim of “removing” Bakhceli from the leadership.
The effort ended in the courts and the controversy led to the departure of Aksener and her supporters, who founded the Good Party in 2017.
Ogan was expelled a second time from the MHP amid chaotic internal party disputes over that year’s crucial constitutional referendum. Nevertheless, he himself did not switch to another party, nor did he establish his own.
“He declared that he will remain loyal to his party and his struggle,” reads Ogan’s biography on his official website, “according to the principles of Turkish nationalism” and with the aim “not to leave Turkish nationalists without a presidential candidate.”
He did so in these, officially as an independent and supported by the ultra-nationalist “ATA Alliance”, gathering the required 100,000 signatures.
“Fuzzy” positions
Now Sinan Ogan says he will make his decisions on the second round of the presidential election in consultation with his supporters and the grassroots. He has publicly set a tough refugee policy as a prerequisite.
“Asylum seekers will go to their countries. If necessary, they will go by force,” he declared, but “within the framework of the law.”
While, by his cynical admission, he is haggling here and there for ministries, he says that the final decision – which could determine the winner of the second round – will be made “on the basis of common sense”. He announced a “roadmap” by the middle of the week.
However, the question remains how many of the 5.17% of voters who preferred him in the first round will follow his decision or even what will be their participation in the second round at the end of the month.
