Hopes that Abdullah Gul, a former president and the sole political figure attributed a credible chance to defeat Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the snap polls on June 24, will enter the elections have all but died as opposition groups scramble for alternatives.

Gul, a reformist who appeals to conservatives, liberals and Kurds alike, was also expected to steal plenty of Erdogan voters disaffected with his iron grip, a weakening economy and growing reluctance to share the spoils of power.

He was being touted as a joint candidate for the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), the newly formed right-wing nationalist Iyi or Good Party, and the small pro-Islamic Felicity Party. The largest pro-Kurdish bloc, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), would run its own candidate (it announced yesterday that it would field its imprisoned former leader) so as to shield Gul from accusations that he is backed by “terrorists.” Erdogan continues to gratuitously slap the label on the HDP, which has seen thousands of its members jailed since the failed July 2016 coup. But in a second round of balloting, pro-HDP and conservative Kurds, who together account for roughly 18% of voters, would have backed Gul, propelling him to victory. This, anyway, was said to be CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s strategy but as of yesterday it lay in tatters.

Iyi Party leader Meral Aksener declared earlier this week that she would not pull out of the race to make room for Gul. And hard-core CHP secularists and left-wingers, probably egged on by other CHP hopefuls, reacted so viscerally to his candidacy because of his Islamic past that the risk-averse Gul reportedly slammed the door shut. Aksener’s ambitions, twinned with secularist delusions that a candidate who does not appeal to conservative pious voters and Kurds stands a chance of victory appear to have all but guaranteed a second term for Erdogan. The CHP will now have to come up with its own candidate by the May 9 official deadline.