By Athena Papakosta

Just before Turkish voters return to the polls for the country’s second round of elections next Sunday, May 28, Kemal Kilicdaroglu is losing more ground to Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The regulator of the second round of the presidential elections, the ultranationalist Sinan Ogan has chosen a camp and this is none other than that of the Turkish president.

“In the second round of the elections, following these negotiations we had, I declare that we will support the candidate of the “People’s Alliance”, Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan. I also call on our citizens who voted to support Mr. Erdogan in the second round,” said Ogan three 24 hours after his 60-minute meeting with the Turkish president last Friday in Istanbul.

It would be a surprise if Sinan Ogan sided with Kemal Kilicdaroglu and the united opposition. The fact that he announced yesterday that he will support Erdogan’s presidential candidacy did not surprise anyone. After all, Ogan himself comes from the nationalists of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), from which he has now left.

Now the margins of an electoral victory for the united Turkish opposition and, of course, for its 74-year-old presidential candidate, Kilicdaroglu, are narrowing since Erdogan starts the second round not only with 49.52% of the first round in his quiver but also with Ogan’s approximately three million votes in his pocket.

Despite the fact that he himself changed his strategy by choosing to return from the kitchen to the office, replacing the heart sign with the clapping of the hand on the table and finally adopting the nationalist crowns in turn, the presidential battle looks like a mountain.

At the same time, the other side from a position of power chooses, not by chance, in the middle of the pre-election period, to provoke by questioning the sovereignty of the Greek islands.

In particular, yesterday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, speaking on the HaberTurk channel, underlined: “there is the issue of maritime areas of responsibility. It is considered easy to solve the issue of islands and islets whose sovereignty has not been determined.

We say they belong to us, the Greeks say they belong to them” and he continues insisting on the return of the challenges stressing “they claim 10 miles (s.s airspace) over the 6 miles. There is the status of demilitarized islands. Claiming 10 miles of airspace over 6 miles of territorial waters is both ridiculous and illegal under international law.”

There are now six days left and we are in the final stretch to see which of the two, either Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Kemal Kilicdaroglu, managed to convince the voters. For now the united opposition continues its election campaign in the hope that the economy will erode the Turkish president’s re-election chances, and Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to engage in a campaign of campaign appearances, always singing to his supporters.