Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, also spelled Kemal Kilicdaroglu, (born December 17, 1948, Ballıca, Tunceli province, Turkey), Turkish economist and politician who has led the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi; CHP) since 2010. Kılıçdaroğlu was born Kemal Karabulut in the village of Ballıca in Tunceli, a province in eastern Turkey whose population is predominantly Alevi (an Anatolian Muslim community considered heterodox by Turkey’s Sunni majority) and Kurdish. He and his twin brother, Adil, were the fourth and fifth children, respectively, in a family of seven children. Their father, Kamer, worked in the civil service as a land registry officer, while their mother,
Turkey President Recep Tayyib Erdogan, who has been in power since 2003, might face a genuine challenge from Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who heads a six-party alliance and is known as Turkey's Gandhi.
Seventy-four-year-old Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a former civil servant, is the candidate of the coalition of six Opposition parties for the 14 May presidential elections in Turkey. Owing to his physical resemblance to the Indian leader, the Turkish politician has been dubbed Gandhi Kemal by the local media