The candidate who won third place in the first round of presidential elections in Turkey on May 14, Sinan Ogan, supported the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the second round, reports Reuters.
This, according to the British agency, is an intensified challenge for the opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the second round of voting, which takes place on Sunday, May 28.
Ogan, a hardline nationalist who was little known to the general public before the campaign, won 5,2 percent of support in the first round, prompting some analysts to call him a potential "kingmaker" for the second round.
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"I declare that we will support the candidate of the People's Alliance Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the second round," Ogan told a news conference in Ankara, adding that his campaign had made Turkish nationalists "key players" in politics.
Kilicdaroglu's National Alliance "failed to convince us about the future", while the decision to support Erdogan was based on the principle of "continuous fight (against) terrorism", he said.
On May 14, Erdogan received the support of 49,5 percent and Kilicdaroglu 44,9 percent, while the coalition of the ruling party won the majority in the parliament.
That gives Erdogan an advantage as he seeks to extend his two-decade rule.
Ogan, 55, a former academic, was a presidential candidate in the first round of an alliance of right-wing parties led by the Victory Party, which is known for its anti-immigrant stance in Turkey, the world's largest host of refugees.
In an interview with Reuters last week, Ogan said his goal was to remove the two mainly Kurdish parties from Turkey's "political equation" and strengthen Turkish nationalists and secularists.
The pro-Kurdish party HDP supported Kilicdaroglu, while the Kurdish-Islamist Huda-Par supports Erdogan.
Kilicdaroglu has vowed to roll back much of Erdogan's sweeping changes to Turkey's domestic, foreign and economic policies, including reversing an unorthodox economic program to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.
Erdogan said that a vote for him in the second round is a vote for stability.
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