Elections in Turkey: Regulator from nowhere Sinan Ogan – He achieved his goal

“Refugees are the greatest danger to our economy, our culture, public order, our internal and external security. It’s time for them to go home.” This is what Sinan Ogan, candidate of the nationalist ATA coalition for the Turkish presidential elections, wrote on Twitter last week. Anyone who hoped that such a comment would provoke negative reactions in pre-election Turkey was disappointed. The response on Twitter has been overwhelmingly positive.

It is estimated that around five and a half million refugees live in Turkey today. In the wake of the pandemic, in an environment of economic crisis and after the devastating earthquakes that hit the country last February, these people are no longer welcome. For Sinan Ogan, they are a central issue of the pre-election campaign. He wants their immediate removal and, while praising the Turks in all tones, claims that the Syrian refugees are dangerous and criminals. In the first round of the elections, last Sunday, Sinan Ogan may have been in third and last place among the contenders for the Presidency, but he gathered a respectable percentage of 5.1%. He now feels he can influence the final outcome of the second round clash between Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu. But there are two key questions: If he will want to stand openly in favor of one of the two candidates, but also if his voters would actually follow any of his suggestions.

Ogan achieved his goal

The voting behavior of his followers has not yet been sufficiently analyzed. What is certain is that without Sinan Ogan, neither Erdogan can be re-elected, nor Kilicdaroglu can make the coup. Sinan Ogan’s strategic goal was from the beginning to decide the presidential elections in the second round and himself to force the two gladiators to sit down at the negotiating table, but on his own terms. “When that moment comes, we will not make any concessions for free,” he said before the election, implying that he would demand specific ministries.

Currently Sinan Ogan continues consultations with party organs. So far he has blamed both Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu for working with the Kurds. He even accuses Erdogan of collaborating with the pro-Kurdish Islamist party HÜDAPAR. For its part, the opposition coalition is praising Sinan Ogan, because he insists on treating the pro-Kurdish party HDP, the third force in the Turkish National Assembly, as an offshoot of the PKK terrorist organization.

Ideologically, Sinan Ogan is closer to Erdogan’s conservative Islam than to Kilicdaroglu’s liberal version. In order to support the opposition in the second round, it is considered certain that he will put forward very specific conditions, such as distancing himself from the Kurds. It remains doubtful whether Kilitdaroglu can agree to this, having won the most votes in the first round in the stronghold districts of the pro-Kurdish HDP.

From university to the Gray Wolves

Sinan Ogan was born in the city of Igdir in Anatolia. He studied Economics and Administrative Sciences at Marmara University, Istanbul. He worked at university institutions in Russia and Azerbaijan, while he was head of the branch of Russian and Ukrainian studies at the Eurasian Center for Strategic Studies (ASAM). He was initially active in the “Grey Wolves”, an extremist group that is considered a follow-up to the “Nationalist Movement Party” (MHP).

Ogan himself was an MP of the MHP, current government partner of Tayyip Erdoğan. However, in 2017, in the context of internal party controversies, he was expelled from the party and since then he has been looking for a new political home, preferably under his own leadership. Looks like he made it. In March, four smaller parties from the anti-systemic, far-right space formed the ATA alliance with him and nominated Sinan Ogan as a candidate for the presidential elections.

source: Deutsche Welle