Sinan Ogan, a Turkish academic of Azerbaijani origin, will run in the presidential elections to be held on May 14 in Turkey for the Ancestors Alliance (ATA), after collecting more than 100,000 signatures, which is a legal requirement to run for the highest office in the country.
Sinan Ogan, a Turkish academic of Azerbaijani origin, will run in the presidential elections to be held on May 14 in Turkey for the ancestral alliance, after collecting more than 100,000 signatures, which is a legal requirement to run for the highest position in the country.
The pro-Ogan Grandparents Alliance consists of four parties: the Victory Party, the Justice Party, the Baladi Party, and the Turkish Alliance Party, known for its nationalist positions.
The Grandparents Alliance (ATA) is not particularly significant when compared to the other two major political blocs, namely the People's Alliance led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Justice and Development Party and the People's Alliance led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the opposition Republican People's Party. These political alliances will run in the electoral race on May 14 to compete for parliamentary seats and the presidency.
Ogan, 56, started his political career with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). In 2011 he became a deputy for the city of his birth, Igdir, a province in eastern Anatolia that has a large number of Azerbaijani residents.
Early in his career, Ogan was on good terms with Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party. However, following Bahçeli's adoption of a new line of support for Erdoğan's policies following the November 2015 elections, Oğan joined other nationalist figures in opposing his leadership of the party.
Fractured politics
Bahçeli and Erdogan did not gather a single political alliance before 2015, the year the country witnessed a second general election in November, after the first elections in June produced fractured results that were ineligible to deliver a clear winner.
However, after the victory of the Justice and Development Party in the November 2015 elections, and the collapse of the “settlement process” in Turkey, which Bahçeli had always vehemently opposed, a growing alliance between Bahçeli’s Turkish National Movement Party, which remained the focus of the Turkish nationalist movement for more than a decade, began to emerge into the open. For five decades, Erdogan has been a conservative leader with great influence.
Some nationalist politicians such as Sinan Ogan, Maral Akşener, Umit Özdağ and Korey Aydın, who are all MHP members before putting forward their own political programmes, opposed Bahceli's alliance with Erdoğan (AA)
As a result, some nationalist politicians such as Sinan Ogan, Maral Akşener, Umit Özdağ and Koray Aydın, who are all MHP members before putting forward their own political programmes, opposed Bahceli's alliance with Erdoğan. In the end, these politicians emerged as a bloc opposed to Bahceli's old leadership.
In June 2016, opponents of Bahceli, including Ogan, called a controversial party conference to amend the MHP charter, despite the objections of the party management, in an attempt to remove Bahceli from the leadership position. However, the disputed June conference ended up in court due to internal squabbles.
The party congress did not take place in July, and the court overturned the decision to amend the charter of the MHP, thus retaining Bahceli's position. In subsequent months, Akşener and her supporters defected from the MHP to found the İYİ Party in 2017.
As for Ogan, he remained in the National Movement Party despite the decisions to expel him twice because of his anti-party activities, and the court canceled his expulsion decision on one occasion. On Ogan's website is a statement saying that he "has not switched to any other party, nor has he founded a new party," declaring that he will remain "loyal to his party and his struggle."
But in the crucial 2017 referendum on changing the parliamentary system in Turkey to a presidential one, Ogan opposed the MHP's decision, joining other opponents of Bahceli such as Aksener and supporting the "no" option rejecting the amendments.
Since 2017, Ogan has not been affiliated with any party. He will run in the upcoming elections as an independent candidate, although the ancestral alliance led by Ozdag named him a presidential candidate.
During a press conference, Turkish journalists asked Ogan which candidate he would support if the presidential elections go to a run-off between Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu in the event that neither of them gets more than 50% of the votes in the first round. He said: "We will evaluate their competencies and national positions. We will consider "Affiliations with terrorist organizations and seeking help from them. We will decide based on common sense. Common sense shows us that we may not be able to promise heaven, but it is time to close the gates of hell."
Ogan's scientific and professional background
The nationalist politician graduated from Marmara University with a major in Business Administration in 1989. After that, he completed a master's degree in banking/financial law from the same university in 1992. Later, in 2009, he completed his Ph.D. at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) in Russia.
Between 1992 and 2000, he worked as a lecturer at the Foundation for Global Turkish Studies in Azerbaijan, according to its website. In the same period, he also headed the Azerbaijan office of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), a state institution.
In the 2000s, he worked at the Eurasian Center for Strategic Research (ASAM), heading the center's Russia and Ukraine department. In 2004, he founded a think tank, TURKSAM, the Turkish Strategic Analyzes Center, which is still operating today.
After becoming an MP for the Nationalist Movement Party in 2011, he was a member of the Turkish-Albanian and Turkish-Nigerian parliamentary friendship groups. During his service in Parliament, he also served as Secretary General of the Turkish-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Friendship Group.
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