THERE IS ONLY ONE POSSIBILITY

Özgür Özel, leader of the new party, made a striking statement about the debate over whether he would be a presidential candidate.

“The claim that I will be a candidate is false.

I am not keeping myself as an option in my mind, or out in the open,” he said.

He then said there was only one possibility.

“If the polls show that only I am winning, then I will not run from the responsibility,” he said.

Özel said that, as the person running the election process, his main duty was to prepare a programme of solutions for Turkey’s problems.

“There is no such thing as Özgür Özel gathering his aides and deciding on a candidacy,” he said.

He stressed that his own priority was to identify the right candidate.

“When the day comes, identifying the right candidate: that is my job,” he said.

He underlined that, in choosing the right candidate, the name Özgür Özel was not among the options either.

“Say Mr Mansur is not there, there is no other candidate, there is nothing, and you are winning too.

Then nobody can run from the responsibility.

Nobody can win, only you are winning.

If only I am winning, that means I am the right candidate.

Then it happens,” Özgür Özel added.