The six-party coalition is expected to meet for an 11th time on Thursday as critical elections are just months ahead and start discussions for a presidential candidate.
The meeting will be hosted by the Good Party (IP), whose leader Meral Akşener last week said, "On Jan. 26 we will start discussing the process and method of determining a candidate."
Türkiye is heading toward presidential and parliamentary elections this year on May 14. This year's elections were supposed to take place in June, but ruling party members said that month would coincide with summer and religious holidays, prompting an earlier date.
The six allied opposition parties are running out of time, bickering about everything from policy and strategy to which candidate to field against the 68-year-old leader.
The opposition is formed by the Republican People's Party (CHP), the Felicity Party (SP), IP, the Future Party (GP), the Democrat Party (DP) and the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA).
If no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote, a second round of voting would be held on May 28.
During their last meeting, the parties evaluated 2022. The parties once again reiterated their plan to consolidate democracy and implement the “strengthened parliamentary system,” which limits the president to a seven-year term and requires that the president sever his ties to political parties and prohibits them from joining a political party after their term.
The statement further said that the parties approached the finalization of two more texts: “a road map for the transition period” and a “joint policies text” that will be introduced to the public in a meeting on Jan. 30. These two texts were created to define the cooperation structure of the parties.
One of the potential candidates has been Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, however he was banned from politics last month for slander in a case stemming from his 2019 victory.
Imamoğlu can keep serving as mayor while the appeal process winds its way through the courts.
But a separate Interior Ministry probe against his office on "terrorism" charges threatens to sideline him sooner.
The twin cases make Imamoğlu's candidacy extremely risky for the opposition.
The risks around Imamoğlu have turned CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu into the most likely candidate to stand against Erdoğan.
But the 74-year-old former civil servant's failure to light up opinion polls has caused divisions within the six opposition parties.
Akşener on the other hand, had previously stated that she did not aim to be president.
