It’s safe to say one man truly outperformed expectations in Turkey’s presidential vote on Sunday: Sinan Ogan.

The ultranationalist candidate of the Ancestral Alliance, which is a combination of the Victory Party and Justice Party, Ogan got 5.2 percent of the vote, forcing the race into a second round runoff between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu on 28 May.

Most polls before the election indicated he’d struggle to surpass three percent.

After the election, results clearly demonstrated that there was no winner in the first round, Ogan confidently said the Nation Alliance opposition coalition “doesn’t know right-wing politics. That’s why they have lost many elections”.

It’s likely that Ogan was assisted by the withdrawal of Muharrem Ince, the Homeland Party candidate that quit over an online smear campaign.

He also seems to have attracted conservative and nationalist voters turned off by the main candidates.

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