In Turkey’s snap presidential elections next month, the incumbent, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, faces a challenge, among several, from the very quarters that propelled him to political stardom in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The National View, the movement that pioneered political Islam in Turkey, has fielded a presidential candidate, Temel Karamollaoglu, to oppose Erdogan, and the Felicity Party that Karamollaoglu leads has allied with major opposition forces for the parliamentary elections taking place the same day, June 24.

The Felicity Party got less than 1% of the vote in the last elections, held in 2015, and although its popularity has since increased, it still polls well below the 10% threshold required to enter parliament as an individual party. Yet in the close parliamentary race that pollsters are predicting, the Felicity Party is seen as a critical player, capable of tipping the scale in the opposition’s favor by attracting pious Turks and Kurds disillusioned with Erdogan’s rule.

In the opposition’s unprecedented efforts to unite against Erdogan, Karamollaoglu adds an Islamic voice to a motley chorus of critics who accuse Erdogan of trying to cement one-man rule, polarizing society, mismanaging the economy and enabling corruption and nepotism. Courteous and mild-tempered in nature, Karamollaoglu, a white-bearded septuagenarian, has been blunt and pungent in his criticism, drawing sympathetic ears even among staunch secularists averse to political Islam.

The newfound spirit of solidarity is not, however, without controversy. For many secularists, Karamollaoglu's name conjures the massacre of 33 intellectuals in Sivas on July 2, 1993, during an Alevi cultural festival attended by prominent leftist figures. The victims perished when an Islamist mob set their hotel on fire after a steady buildup of tensions. The crowd that had assembled after Friday prayers chanted, “Sivas will be the grave of secularists.” Before torching the hotel, some in the crowd tore down a statue erected as part of the festival.