MESOP : TURKISH OPPOSITION CANDIDATES

Turkish Opposition Parties Name Joint Presidential Candidate: With the presidential election looming in August, Turkey’s two main opposition parties have named a joint candidate to challenge current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is expected to run for the presidency. Former Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Secretary-General, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, was nominated by the two primary opposition parties in Turkey, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

Ihsanoglu resigned in January after heading the OIC for nearly 10 years. Meanwhile, Erdogan asked the Turkish media to refrain from the covering the hostage crisis at the Turkish consulate in Mosul, after it was taken over by ISIS forces. After claiming that coverage of the hostage crisis would “[put] the hostages’ lives at risk,” an Ankara court issued a gag order stating “all kinds of print, visual and Internet media are banned from writing and commenting on the situation;” Turkey’s supreme Board of Radio subsequently dispersed the decision to all media executives, noting the ban was “effective immediately.”