Turkey’s opposition close to naming Kilicdaroglu to challenge Erdogan

Turkey’s six-party opposition alliance declared Thursday that it had “reached a common understanding” on a candidate to challenge President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey’s crucial presidential elections in May, but it delayed an official announcement on who he is until next week.

The candidate is likely to be main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who is upheld by the five parties in the opposition platform. The stumbling block appears to be right-wing Iyi Party, the second-largest party in the coalition, which is not entirely persuaded that Kilicdaroglu is the right man to defeat Erdogan. Meral Aksener, the leader of Iyi, was in a meeting with her party members as of this writing.