Muharrem İnce (born 4 May 1964) is a Turkish physics teacher, school principal, sport executive, and politician. He founded and is leader of the Homeland Party since May 2021. Formerly a four term

Republican People's Party The Republican People's Party ( tr, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, , acronymized as CHP ) is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey which currently stands as the main opposition party. It is also the oldest political party i ...

(Turkish: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, abbreviated CHP) MP for Yalova, his hometown, he also served as the CHP's parliamentary group deputy chairman between June 2010 and August 2014. İnce has stood for election as CHP chairman twice against current chairman Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu: first in September 2014 following the party's loss in the Turkish presidential election on 18 August 2014, and later in February 2018. As the presidential candidate of the CHP in the

2018 Turkish presidential election Presidential elections were held in Turkey on 24 June 2018 as part of the 2018 general election, alongside parliamentary elections on the same day. They were the first direct presidential elections, following constitutional amendments approved ...

, Ince received just over 30 percent of the votes, placing second behind outright first-round winner

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current president of Turkey since 2014. He previously served as prime minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to ...

, with 53 percent.

Biography

İnce was born in the village of Elmalık in the

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions out ...

Yalova Yalova is a market-gardening town located in northwestern Turkey on the eastern coast of the Sea of Marmara. The town has a population of 156,838, while the population of the surrounding Yalova Province is 291,001 . A largely modern town, it is ...

as the son of Şerif and Zekiye İnce. His paternal grandparents originated from modern-day

Drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

Greek Macedonia Macedonia (; el, Μακεδονία, Makedonía ) is a geographic and former administrative region of Greece, in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and Greek geographic region, with a population of 2.36 million in 2020. It is ...

, his maternal grandparents originated from

Rize Rize ( Greek: ρίζα, Laz: რიზინი, Georgian: რიზე, , Ottoman Turkish: ريزه) is the capital city of Rize Province in the eastern part of the Black Sea Region of Turkey. Rize is a typically Turkish provincial capital wi ...

on the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

coast of

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

. He graduated from Balıkesir University, Necatibey Faculty of Education, Physics-Chemistry and later worked as a physics teacher and a school principal. Later, he worked as the Head of Press for football club Yalovaspor. He was elected as president of the

Atatürkist Thought Association The Atatürkist Thought Association ( tr, Atatürkçü Düşünce Derneği; ADD) is a secularist organization that espouses the ideas of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey. It was founded by Hıfzı Veldet Velidedeoğlu, Muamm ...

, a

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

organization that espouses the ideas of

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, or Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 Surname Law (Turkey), until 1934 ( 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish Mareşal (Turkey), field marshal, Turkish National Movement, re ...

, the founder of modern Turkey. He is married to Ülkü with whom he has a son named Salih Arda.

Politics

İnce has been known in Turkish politics as one of the fiercest voices of the main opposition since 2002, against the ruling Justice and Development Party (Turkish: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, abbreviated AKP) of

. He became well known through his speeches which were widely shared on the internet . Following the

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operat ...

of CHP

parliamentary group leader A parliamentary leader is a political title or a descriptive term used in various countries to designate the person leading a parliamentary group or caucus in a legislative body, whether it be a national or sub-national legislature. They are their ...

s Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and as party leader and deputy leader respectively, İnce ran for group leadership and was elected with 58 votes. He was re-elected in 2011 and 2013 and before resigning in August 2014. He was replaced by

Levent Gök Levent Gök (born 24 October 1959) is a Turkish politician from the Republican People's Party (CHP) who currently serves as one of the three parliamentary group leaders for his party since 22 August 2014. He succeeded Muharrem İnce, who resigned ...

. On 30 March 2014, Turkey held

local elections In many parts of the world, local elections take place to select office-holders in local government, such as mayors and councillors. Elections to positions within a city or town are often known as "municipal elections". Their form and conduct v ...

, and the elections in

were won narrowly by İnce's party, the CHP. However, the elections in Yalova were to be contested again. İnce played a crucial role in the process and the CHP's candidate, Vefa Salman, won the second election as well. On 18 August 2014, İnce declared his candidacy for CHP chairmanship but lost the scrutiny during the 18th Republican People's Party Extraordinary Convention in September 2014. He once again stood against Kılıçdaroğlu for party leadership in the 36th CHP Ordinary Convention in February 2018, but his bid once again was unsuccessful. He received 447 votes from delegates, as opposed to Kılıçdaroğlu's 790 votes. İnce was revealed to be the presidential candidate of the

(CHP) on 3 May 2018. The following day, party leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu formally proclaimed the CHP's support for İnce and his candidacy was formally announced. Shortly thereafter, the CHP began preparations for the campaign season, launching the production of campaign materials and merchandise. It was revealed in early May that İnce's campaign would adopt the slogan “''Türkiye’ye güvence Muharrem İnce''”, roughly translating to "Muharrem İnce, an assurance to Turkey", and that it would be kicked off with an election rally in his home city of

on 5 May. President Erdoğan subsequently beat İnce in the first round of the presidential election, receiving 52.6% of votes. İnce received 30.64% of votes. After the 37th CHP Ordinary Convention, it was claimed that İnce would be founding a new political party, called the National Party, in September. He founded his political platform named the Homeland Movement on September 4, 2020, while still being a member of the

. İnce announced his resignation from the Republican Peoples' Party on 31 January 2021, and formally resigned on 8 February of the same year.

External links

Official Twitter

Profile at the Turkish Grand National Assembly website

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ince, Muharrem 1964 births Living people Deputies of Yalova Contemporary Republican People's Party (Turkey) politicians Members of the 22nd Parliament of Turkey Members of the 23rd Parliament of Turkey Members of the 24th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 25th Parliament of Turkey Members of the 26th Parliament of Turkey Turkish political party founders