The pool for this year’s presidential election narrowed to three candidates on Thursday, when Muharrem Ince pulled out of the race.

Apart from Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu, right-wing Ancestral Alliance candidate Sinan Ogan is also running.

Centrist Homeland Party leader Ince said he had withdrawn following a “slander campaign” against him. He has faced weeks of lurid allegations on social media in Turkey and the Ankara public prosecutor’s office said Thursday it had opened an investigation into potential blackmail.

His party, Homeland, will however remain in the parliamentary race.

The 59-year-old ran for president in 2018 but lost against Erdogan. In March this year, he broke away from Kilicdaroglu’s CHP and joined the presidential race. He initially rebuffed calls by his former party to pull out amid concern that he’d take votes away from Erdogan’s rival.

Ince did not endorse any of the remaining candidates, and his name will also remain on the ballot. His withdrawal is a potential boost to Kilicdaroglu.

A lawmaker representing the CHP since 2002 – the same year that saw Erdogan’s AK Party rise to power – Kilicdaroglu, 74, climbed up the political ladder to become his party’s seventh chairman in 2010.

Born in the eastern, Kurdish-majority province of Tunceli, the party leader ran in Turkey’s 2011 general election but lost, coming second to Erdogan and his AK Party.

Kilicdaroglu represents the party formed 100 years ago by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of modern Turkey and a die-hard secularist. He stands in stark contrast to Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted party and its conservative base.

Despite his secular leanings, however, the opposition candidate and his alliance have vowed to represent all factions of Turkish society, which analysts say was demonstrated in his diverse coalition.