Will joint presidential candidate of the CHP and MHP work out?

Against all odds, the announcement of a joint presidential candidate by the Republican People's Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has come as quite a surprise, as the possibility of Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu's candidacy did not circulate much in the lobbies. A while ago, I met İhsanoğlu at the Global Leadership Forum organized by Bahçeşehir University, where he delivered a brief speech. I wondered why İhsanoğlu was invited to such a meeting, titled "Global Leadership," which was attended by more than 15 foreign representatives. However, I could not find an answer that would satisfy my curiosity.

Perhaps, it was a foreshadowing of his candidacy. Actually, İhsanoğlu gave the signal of this toward the end of his time at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which he chaired for nine years, with his different approach to the ongoing Syria crisis and his diffidence over the military coup in Egypt. He, thus, fell into the same line as the neocons that strive to design the region politically. It seems that this stance took him to the position of nonpartisan presidential candidacy in the eyes of CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli. Thus, more new stuff has been added to the opposition's political engineering attempts, which emerged with the Gezi incidents, followed by the Dec. 17 and Dec. 25 operations and resulted in a local election alliance.

Now, in front of us, we have a presidential candidate who is the outcome of a very political engineering endeavor. The visible target of the opposition is to kill two birds with one stone. It appears that, first and foremost, İhsanoğlu is regarded as somebody who will save Kılıçdaroğlu and Bahçeli from potential intra-party trouble. Had former CHP leader Deniz Baykal been nominated as the joint candidate, his legitimacy within the party would have been approved and his return to the party would have been problematic due to the possibility of receiving a high voting rate. The same goes for the MHP's Meral Akşener as well.

Secondly, they are planning to take votes from the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) voters through İhsanoğlu, who comes from a conservative background. I am afraid this calculation, which seems reasonable at first, does not match the reality of Turkey. The conservative grassroots does not want to jeopardize the democratic gains that have been acquired during AK Party rule, just as they did not embrace actors such as Abdullatif Şener, who has steered toward irrelevant political blocks. Because of the reconciliation process, Kurds are of the same opinion.

Under these circumstances, İhsanoğlu may not garner votes from the conservative sections and lose the votes of secularist and Kemalist circles. The reactions of such figures as Nur Serter and Hulki Cevizoğlu are not surprising at all. These hardline politicians had also reacted strongly against the alliance with the Gülen Movement after the Dec. 17 operation.

In terms of the political engineering attempts, this situation reminds us of the Mansur Yavaş instance in the past local elections, but it is not the same as that because there is a common ground of nationalism and secularism between the CHP's neo-nationalists and such political figures as Yavaş. However, the same common ground is not true in the case of the CHP's neo-nationalists and other conservatives.

Here is a paradoxical situation in that the CHP has failed to offer a presidential candidate coming from within its own traditions and has succumbed to an Islamist figure, leaving aside the CHP's 90-year history. This raises a question mark in people's minds: Why has the CHP taken this risk? Thus, the CHP has itself proved that the dominant political movement in Turkey and the region is the Islamist conservative one. That is why some figures from the CHP have started to say, "The mission of the CHP is over." It looks like the CHP will go through a handwringing process. Now we can put the main question: Does such a candidate have a chance of winning? I am afraid not. Well, why do the CHP and the MHP offer a candidate, whose name is hardly ever pronounced by the Turkish public, for a critical election like this and put him against Erdoğan? Or, are they adopting a strategic mentality in line with regional developments? We saw that this strategic wisdom did not work out in the local elections; we will wait and see whether it will succeed in the forthcoming presidential election.