Presidential candidate İnce’s background

After the announcement that Muharrem İnce will be the CHP’s presidential candidate, a short reminder on who he is, and why he was chosen
Friday, 04 May 2018 23:51

After a long period of debates and speculations, Turkey’s parliamentary opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) named its candidate for the presidential elections – Muharrem İnce, known for his fiery rhetoric and nationalistic views. But then, who is İnce, and why was he chosen by his party?

Starting his political career as a deputy with the popular election in 2002, İnce has since been in the limelight as a political figure. What actually highlighted him, however, was the last two congresses of the CHP, where İnce successively ran for the party leadership against the present Chairperson Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.

İnce was on the front burner especially after the latter congress in February this year, since he overtly criticised Kılıçdaroğlu and many other party officials, and accused them of creating a status quo within the party.

In the latest congress of the CHP, İnce explained that he had voted against the abolishment of the immunity of deputies in 2016, even though Kılıçdaroğlu and the CHP’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) had voted for the motion. “After I have been elected tonight as the Chairman, if God wills, I am going to discard all those in the CEC who voted for the abolishment, and form a new CEC.”

Both in the speeches he delivered during the proceedings of the congress and in his statements in defence of his party against criticisms from various camps, İnce actually revealed his role as a politician.

In an attempt to vaporise the image as a nationalist distanced to Kurds, for instance, he would say that they had to “look out for Kurds when bombs are dropped on children”, referring to the Uludere Massacre where 34 Kurdish citizens of Turkey were killed by bombs dropped by Turkish Air Forces in 2011. In the very same speech, İnce would also “look out for” Turkey’s capitalists, stating: “If the bid of a holding’s owner is called off because he had opened his hotel’s doors to the resisting youngsters of the Gezi Park protests, we cannot say, ‘I am a leftist, I don’t care about capitalists.’”

In compliance with his discourse in politics and the image he has been trying to create as a politician who embraces all, Muharrem İnce resigned from the CHP in order to become “everyone’s president” without a party. Considering that he has been in bad odour with many party officials and authorities, if he fails at the elections, he may also be banished from the party. If he wins the elections, on the other hand, he may become even more powerful in the CHP.