Leader of the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu
Photo: REUTERS
KEMAL KILICHDAROGLU – CANDIDATE IN THE 2023 TURKEY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Turkey’s presidential candidate, the leader of the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, was nominated as the only candidate from an opposition alliance that includes the CHP and five other parties.
On May 14, 2023, in the first round of the presidential election, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu won 44.88% of the vote. For his main rival, the current president of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 49.52% of voters cast their ballots for him. None of the candidates passed the 50% threshold.
Thus, on May 28, the fight will continue in the second round of the presidential elections. On the eve we told the biographies of two candidates.
Kılıçdaroğlu is an Alevi, a member of a sub-ethnic, religious and cultural minority in Turkey with traces of Islam, Judaism, Manichaeism and Arab paganism.
Photo: REUTERS
KEMAL KYLICHDAROGLU BIOGRAPHY
Turkey’s presidential candidate, leader of the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, was born on December 17, 1948 in the town of Ballıca, Tunceli province, in the east of the country.
In 1971, he graduated from the Ankara Academy of Economic and Commercial Sciences, trained in France, worked as an accountant in various institutions, since 1983 – in the General Directorate of Revenue, where he rose to the rank of Deputy Director General.
In 1991, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was appointed CEO of the Social Insurance Society for Entrepreneurs and Craftsmen, then worked as an assistant to the Turkish Vice Minister of Labor and Social Security. In 1994, he was chosen by Ekonomik Trend magazine as “Officer of the Year”. He taught at Ankara’s Hacettepe University, was a member of the board of directors of the Turkish bank Bankas.
Kılıçdaroğlu voters are determined to win it
Photo: REUTERS
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
In 2002, he was elected to the Turkish parliament as a deputy from the country’s oldest Republican People’s Party, created by the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. In 2010 he assumed the presidency of this party after the resignation of his predecessor, Deniz Baikal, in the midst of a scandal with the publication of a video of a sexual nature compromising him.
In June 2017, Kılıçdaroğlu walked from Ankara to Istanbul at the head of the Justice March”, protesting that his fellow party member, Turkish MP Enis Berberoglu, was sentenced to 25 years in prison on treason charges for passing photos and videos to journalists. , which showed trucks with weapons, supposedly intended to supply Syrian opposition fighters.
RELIGION AND FAMILY
Kılıçdaroğlu is an Alevi, a member of a sub-ethnic, religious and cultural minority in Turkey with traces of Islam, Judaism, Manichaeism and Arab paganism.
Married, has three children.
