Muslim ND candidate withdraws from election race after alleged intel report

Mustafa Katranci, a parliamentary candidate for the Conservatives from the Rhodope province in northeastern Greece, announced on Monday he was withdrawing from the electoral race, after the main opposition claimed that his name was included in an intelligence report citing his alleged links to the Turkish Consulate in Komotini.

“My path in politics all these years had the sole aim of continuing the harmonious coexistence of Christians and Muslims in Rhodope. After the latest developments, I am withdrawing my candidacy from the parliamentary elections on June 25, in order not to disrupt the climate of good coexistence in our region,” Katranci wrote on his Facebook account.

Sources from New Democracy said that the party’s secretary, Pavlos Marinakis, called Katranci, presumably to discuss his removal from the party ticket. “There was communication with Mr. Katrantzis and he immediately responded,” the sources said. 

The announcement will not have any immediate consequence, as it is too late to remove the candidate’s name from the ND ticket, but Katranci is expected to resign his position, if he is elected on June 25. 

In the previous days, main opposition leader Alexis Tsipras had claimed that the candidate’s name was included in an intelligence report, sent to him by Conservative party leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis, which alleged that Katranci was “enlisted in the plans of Ankara and the Turkish consulate [in Thrace].”

Katranci was also targeted by SYRIZA after describing the Muslim minority as “Turks of western Thrace” in an interview with a Turkish publication a few days before the May elections.

The withdrawal is the latest in the political clash over the perceived allegiance of some Muslim MPs which started after Mitsotakis claimed that the national intelligence service, EYP, had informed him while he was still prime minister that two Muslim candidates eventually elected with SYRIZA in the region, Ozgur Ferhat in Rhodopi and Hussein Zeybek in Xanthi, were acting in the interests of the Turkish consulate and their win was the result of propaganda. He said he had informed Tsipras about this report and called on SYRIZA to expel them. 

Tsipras has denied that he was ever briefed about the issue ahead of the eletions.