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Muharrem Ince: In 2018 he received a lot of support from the electorate
Photo:
UMIT BEKTAS / REUTERS
The next presidential elections are scheduled in Turkey in two years.
Now a rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has founded a new party.
"We will reshape Turkey," announced Muharrem Ince when he founded his Memleket (home party) in Ankara.
As a candidate for the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), he received 30.6 percent of the vote in the 2018 election.
Ince accused the leadership in Ankara of looting the state.
"The government has not been able to offer a solution to any of the country's problems," he said.
If he won the election, he promised his supporters a return to a "realistic" foreign policy.
The former CHP politician Ince is considered to be nationalist but secularly oriented.
In 2018, he received great support from the electorate, although the governing coalition of Erdoğan's AKP and the far-right MHP had scheduled the elections just a few months in advance.
The social democratic CHP, founded by state founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, had recently quarreled over the course of current chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Before leaving, Ince had criticized that the party was no longer run democratically.
Three former MPs who also left the CHP have now joined Memleket.
According to the latest polls, approval ratings for Erdoğan are at an all-time low.
There has been speculation in the country about early elections for months.
Erdoğan would also have to face previous companions.
Both the former Turkish Minister of Economic Affairs Ali Babacan and the former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu
left Erdoğan's AKP and founded their own parties.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu (CHP) is already being traded as a possible challenger to Erdoğan.
asc / AFP
