Sinan Ogan, a little-known nationalist, won 5.2% of the vote in Turkey’s recent election, helping push it to a runoff. Ogan has said he could support either President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or his secular rival. He has not yet decided who to endorse but is open to dialogue with both candidates. Ogan is a secular nationalist who was expelled from a far-right party that has since joined Erdogan’s ruling alliance in parliament. He has expressed hopes of being elected president one day.
Ogan’s voters include Turkish nationalists and young people who find him more intellectual and are fed up with the old faces in politics. Matt Gertken, chief political strategist at BCA Research, suggests that Ogan mostly took votes away from Erdogan, whose base is comprised of nationalists and religious conservatives. Ogan has reservations about Kilicdaroglu’s ties with the pro-Kurdish HDP party, which endorsed the opposition leader’s candidacy last month. But he also opposes Erdogan’s alliance with Huda-Par, a far-right group with links to the Kurdish Hezbollah movement.
Ogan wants anyone he supports to firmly renounce “terrorism,” which Turkish politicians use to refer to banned Kurdish militants who have been fighting for greater autonomy. The HDP party is facing a possible court ban over its alleged ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies. Ogan is against any organisation that does not distance itself from terrorism.
