According to the Turkish daily, Hürriyet, MHP deputy candidates Ahmet Deniz Bölükbaşı, Bülent Didinmez and Mustafa Cihan Paçacı, who were forced to resign prior to the 2011 elections, were wiretapped under false names as members of a terror organization.

One of the conspiracies included a sex video. "This is fake," İnce said, expressing his fury and blamed the FETÖ for the release of it.

After 2018, Second shot at the presidency

'Sapere aude'

Turkish presidential candidate quits race after release of alleged sex tape | The Guardian - May 11, 2023 |

The polling organisation Metropoll predicted late last month that İnce voters would predominantly give their votes to Erdoğan's AKP, the CHP, with some also going to the far-right Nationalist Movement party and the nationalist İyi (Good party) in the parliamentary race.

The high-profile deployment of deepfake videos has already hit Turkey's 45-day election cycle, after Erdoğan played an alleged deepfake that claimed to show banned Kurdish militants declaring their support for Kılıçdaroğlu at a pre-election rally last weekend.

Kılıçdaroğlu denounces Russia as rival candidate withdraws on eve of Turkish elections | WSWS |

Kılıçdaroğlu launched an unprecedented attack Russia on Twitter after İnce's withdrawal, blaming Moscow for the conspiracy to interfere in the election. He wrote:

"Dear Russian Friends, you are behind the montages, conspiracies, Deep Fake content, tapes that were revealed in this country yesterday. If you want our friendship to continue after May 15, take your hands off the Turkish state. We are still in favor of cooperation and friendship."

This wholly unsubstantiated statement is absurd. To ascertain who is most likely behind İnce's withdrawal, one must ask, "Cui bono? Who benefits?"

Clearly, İnce's withdrawal favors Kılıçdaroğlu, not Erdoğan. According to the latest polls, İnce's vote share ranged between 1 and 3 percent. According to the Metropoll Research survey, 49.3 percent of his voters said they would support Kılıçdaroğlu and 22 percent said they would support Erdoğan if İnce withdrew from the race.

Kılıçdaroğlu is committed to serving NATO better than Erdoğan, and Washington and Berlin have made it clear that they prefer him to Erdoğan. Already in 2019, during the US presidential election campaign, Biden said that "we support opposition leadership" in Turkey.

The German political establishment, which plays a central role in the NATO war against Russia, is almost unanimously backing Kılıçdaroğlu in the election.