Turkey’s third-largest political party, the pro-Kurdish Democratic People's Party (HDP), announced over the weekend that it will field its own candidate in the critical presidential elections due to be held by June 18 concurrently with parliamentary ones.

The decision, relayed by HDP co-chair Pervin Buldan, is poised to have a profound impact on the presidential race. Opinion is divided as to who stands to benefit: the main opposition bloc known as the “Nation Alliance," which does not include the HDP, or Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and far-right nationalist leader Devlet Bahceli and their “People's Alliance.”

In order to win in a first round, a candidate needs to secure more than 50% of the vote. Opinion polls currently show no candidate scoring that high — that is before undecided voters are taken into account — with some putting Erdogan behind likely contenders from the Nation Alliance. They are, in descending order, Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas and Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the pro-secular main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the CHP's leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Those who believe Erdogan will benefit argue that had the Nation Alliance openly embraced the Kurds rather than take the HDP’s support for granted, the opposition would have had a better shot at winning in the first round, provided its candidate was minimally palatable to Kurdish voters. In any case, the system is completely rigged in his favor, with the judiciary and the mainstream media, among multiple other levers, under the government’s thumb.