ISTANBUL: Third-party candidate Muharrem Ince on Thursday withdrew from Turkey's tight presidential election in a shock move that raised the chances of an opposition first-round victory.
The 59-year-old announced his decision after being targeted by an online smear campaign that included doctored images of him meeting women and riding around in fancy cars.
The secular nationalist picked up 30.6 per cent of the vote when he challenged President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2018 polls.
He then quit the main opposition party and launched his own movement that began to pull votes away from secular leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu -- the joint candidate of the anti-Erdogan bloc.
"I'm withdrawing my candidacy," Ince told reporters ahead of Sunday's presidential and parliamentary ballot. "I am doing this for my country."
Ince had come under fierce criticism from the opposition for entering the campaign just two months before the vote.
Critics saw him as a spoiler candidate who could only help Erdogan extend his two-decade rule until 2028. He has already been in power since 2003.
Ince argued that he offered voters a more vibrant alternative to the 74-year-old Kilicdaroglu -- a bookish former civil servant with a dire national election record against Erdogan. The announcement appeared to catch Turkey's 69-year-old leader off guard.
"One of the candidates has withdrawn. It is impossible to understand why this happened. Honestly, I am sad," Erdogan told a rally in Ankara. "I wish he had continued until the end."
The last opinion polls suggested that Kilicdaroglu was leading Erdogan by a few percentage points but falling just short of breaking the 50 per cent threshold required for a first-round win.
Erdogan's campaign has been hampered by Turkey's worst economic crisis since the 1990s and public frustration at the crackdown he unleashed after surviving a 2016 coup. — AFP
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