Sinan Ogan supported Erdogan in the second round of presidential elections in Turkey Election news

The third-placed candidate says he will support the incumbent in Sunday’s second round of voting.

Sinan Ogan, who took the third place in the presidential elections held in Turkey last week, threw his support behind the current president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the second round to be held on May 28.

Ogan supported Erdogan at a press conference in the capital Ankara on Monday, saying his campaign had made nationalists major players in Turkish politics.

We believe that our decision will be the right decision for our country and nation, said Ogan, citing Erdogan’s parliamentary majority as the reason for his decision.

It is important that the newly elected president is under the same [leadership] as parliament. [Kilicdaroglus] and the alliance could not demonstrate enough success against the People’s Alliance, which has been in power for 20 years, and could not build a perspective that would make us believe in the future.

The decision to support Erdogan was based on the principle of non-stop struggle [against] terrorism, he added.

The announcement comes as Turks go to the polls again on Sunday to decide whether Erdogan or main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu will lead the country for the next five years.

In the first round of voting held on May 14, Erdogan received 49.52 percent of the vote, falling short of the 50 percent majority needed to win the election.

Kılıçdaroğlu, the candidate of the six-party opposition alliance, received 44.88 percent of votes. Ogan finished third with 5.17 percent, leading some analysts to call him a potential king in the runoff.

The former academic was the candidate of the right-wing ATA Alliance, led by the Zafar Party, known for its anti-immigrant stance in Turkey, the world’s largest refugee receiving country.

Kılıçdaroğlu has vowed to roll back Erdogan’s sweeping changes to Turkey’s domestic, foreign and economic policies, including an extraordinary economic program that many economists say has caused the lira to depreciate and inflation to rise.

Erdogan said that the vote given to him in the second round is a vote for stability.

Ogans supported Erdogan after his meeting with the Turkish leader in Istanbul on Friday. After the hour-long meeting, no statement was made.

Seda Demiralp, an associate professor at Isık University, told Al Jazeera from Istanbul that Oga was expected to back Erdogan since yesterday, when he suggested he would promote sustainability and stability, key words used in Erdogan’s campaign.

In today’s speech, he said that he believes that the dominance of the same party in both the executive and legislative bodies is good for stability, and based his decision on this argument.

It was also relatively expected, as Kılıçdaroğlu is likely to lose in the second round. He faces an uphill battle.

On Tuesday, the Victory Party will announce its position on the second round separately.

Analysts said that it is not certain that all of Oğan’s supporters will go to Erdogan, adding that some will go to Kılıçdaroğlu, while others may choose not to vote in the second round.