Turkey’s Supreme Election Board (YSK) announced on Wednesday that a total of six candidates will compete in Turkey’s presidential election to be held on June 24.
Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the joint presidential candidate of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The Republican People’s Party’s (CHP) presidential candidate is CHP deputy Muharrem İnce, that of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) is jailed HDP deputy Selahattin Demirtaş, the İYİ Party will be represented by Meral Akşener, the Felicity Party (SP) by Temel Karamollaoğlu, and the Vatan Party is putting forward the party’s leader, Doğu Perinçek, as its presidential candidate.
Akşener, Karamollaoğlu and Perinçek had to collect 100,000 signatures to be eligible to run in the presidential election. They all had collected 100,000 signatures as of Wednesday, the deadline set by the YSK.
According to constitutional amendments approved in a public referendum last year, political parties that received at least 5 percent of the vote in the last general elections are able to nominate presidential candidates. Other candidates are required to collect 100,000 signatures to be able to run in the presidential election.
