Opposition bloc candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu formally announced his running mates for the May 14 elections with a video he posted on his Twitter account late Sunday.
Donning white shirts like Kılıçdaroğlu, Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavaş and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu are seen sitting next to the Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader at a table in the video. Kılıçdaroğlu addressed the two mayors as his “valiant ones,” heaping praise on the two men running Türkiye’s most populated city and the capital.
The bloc, also known as the “table for six,” had announced earlier that there would be multiple vice presidents, but they did not openly tell who they would be if they won the elections. So, Kılıçdaroğlu’s move will likely disturb other members of the bloc. Earlier, the bloc implied that the head of each party would be assigned as vice presidents under Kılıçdaroğlu.
Kılıçdaroğlu said Imamoğlu would be in charge of “disaster preparedness and ensuring resistance of cities against disasters.” “Mayor Ekrem is the best for this job. He is simultaneously behind the construction of 10 metro lines, a first in world history. He is the one who will end the current awful urbanization (in Türkiye),” Kılıçdaroğlu said in the video.
As for Yavaş, Kılıçdaroğlu described him as a person who would take up technological and agricultural developments. “I trust in Mayor Mansur, who took over a bad management in Ankara and brought it to a new level with his policies and realized efficient projects,” he said.
The mayors addressed Kılıçdaroğlu as “Mr. President” and expressed their readiness for their new “jobs.”
Both mayors were once considered as candidates for the “table for six” before Kılıçdaroğlu was nominated after much political wrangling among six parties. Imamoğlu and Yavaş often accompanied Kılıçdaroğlu on his campaign trail, while Imamoğlu himself was engaged in a solo tour of Türkiye long before the elections and the announcement of Kılıçdaroğlu as the candidate. The bloc’s member Good Party (IP) had suggested Mansur Yavaş, a former nationalist politician, as the presidential candidate, but it was rejected, prompting an angry response from IP Chair Meral Akşener. Akşener, who left the “table” after this rejection, returned to the bloc two days later. Imamoğlu and Yavaş (also sought as presidential candidates by the Victory Party (ZP)) became more prominent in the election campaign after Akşener’s return. Akşener agreed to return to the table when the two mayors were accepted as future vice presidents, according to earlier media reports.
