Muharrem Ince, a third-party candidate in the upcoming Turkish presidential election, has withdrawn from the race, dealing a blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s prospects. Ince made the decision after being targeted by an online smear campaign that included doctored images of him meeting women and riding in expensive cars.
In the 2018 presidential polls, Ince, a secular nationalist, won 30.6% of the vote when he challenged Erdogan. Afterward, he resigned from the main opposition party and established his own movement, which began attracting votes away from secular leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Kilicdaroglu is the joint candidate of the anti-Erdogan bloc, and recent opinion polls indicate that he is leading Erdogan by a small margin, but not enough to win outright in the first round of voting. Ince was seen as a spoiler candidate whose presence in the election ring would only help Erdogan win a third decade of rule.
Ince countered that he offered voters a more vibrant alternative to the 74-year-old Kilicdaroglu, a bookish former civil servant who has lost a string of national elections against Erdogan.
Ince’s popularity has been slipping in recent months, dropping from almost 15% to between 2% and 4%, according to the latest surveys.
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