Europe | Turning the tables 

Turkey’s opposition has picked its man

But some of them are not happy about it

ANKARA, TURKIYE - JANUARY 24: Leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu speaks during his party's group meeting at the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara, Turkiye on January 24, 2023. (Photo by Ercin Erturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
The man to beat Erdogan?Image: Getty Images
|ISTANBUL

IT TOOK THEM long enough. On March 6th, with fewer than 70 days left before the expected date of Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections, a group of six opposition party leaders, known collectively as the Nation Alliance or the Table of Six, unveiled Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the head of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), as their presidential candidate. The atmosphere outside the Ankara headquarters of the Felicity Party, where the meeting took place, was hardly electric. As Mr Kilicdaroglu spoke, his political allies looked on with stony faces. Meral Aksener, the head of the Iyi (“Good”) party, the second-biggest group in the alliance, looked as if she had swallowed a bar of soap.

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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Turning the tables ”

From the March 11th 2023 edition

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