Opposition alliance in Turkey to tap joint presidential candidate: Party head

By Emin Avundukluoglu

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's opposition Nation Alliance will nominate a single presidential candidate in the country's next election, one of the alliance's largest member parties reiterated on Wednesday.

"As the Nation Alliance, we're going to nominate a presidential candidate and that (candidate) will become Turkey's 13th president," said Meral Aksener, the chairwoman of the opposition Good (IYI) Party, addressing her parliamentary group.

Criticizing the presidential system adopted in the country with a referendum in 2017 and put into force the following year, Aksener said that "even if the person we nominate is the most talented and respected person in the world, Turkey can't be governed under this freakish system."

She took issue, in particular, with this system allowing the country's president to simultaneously hold membership in a political party, arguing that it also concentrated too much power in a single person.

"Our problem is that the president, who should be impartial, is on the side of a party ... Our problem is that the separation of powers has been abolished and all authority is concentrated in a single person," she said.

IYI Party cooperates with the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), the Saadet (Felicity) Party, and the Democrat Party (DP) under the Nation Alliance, which was formed before general elections in June 2018.

During her address, Aksener also repeated her pledge not to run for the presidency in the next elections, currently scheduled for June 2023.

She added: "Whether in 2023 or in an election to be held earlier, the primary duty of the (presidential) candidate of the Nation Alliance, who will be elected as Turkey's 13th president, will be to quickly save Turkey from this outdated system, and to put into effect democracy based on the separation of powers."

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly dismissed demands from the opposition for early elections, saying the next elections will be held on schedule.