In the lead up to the 2023 Turkish presidential election, discussions took place around the nomination of presidential candidates.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the incumbent president and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), announced that he would run as the presidential candidate of the electoral alliance, the People's Alliance. Other parties of the People's Alliance, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Great Unity Party (BBP), supported Erdoğan's candidacy. This was Erdoğan's third presidential campaign, following two prior successful campaigns in 2014 and 2018.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the Republican People's Party and the Main Opposition Leader since 2010, was the joint candidate of the Nation Alliance. The Nation Alliance was a newly created electoral alliance of opposition parties consisting of the Table of Six: the Republican People's Party, the Good Party, the Democrat Party, the Felicity Party, DEVA Party and the Future Party. The Alliance held its nomination meeting on 2 March 2023, with an official announcement confirming Kılıçdaroğlu as its joint candidate occurring on 6 March 2023.
Muharrem İnce, who was the presidential candidate of the Republican People's Party in the 2018 election and finished second with 30.6% of the vote, announced that he would be a candidate again as the leader of the Homeland Party. İnce withdrew from the race three days before the election even after gaining ballot access. Sinan Oğan was nominated by the right-wing Ancestral Alliance and also achieved ballot access.
Four candidates, Erdoğan, Kılıçdaroğlu, İnce, and Oğan appeared on the ballot in the first round. After no candidate received a majority of the vote in the first round, the top two candidates, Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu, were the only eligible candidates to appear on the ballot for the second round. Third and fourth place candidates Oğan and İnce endorsed Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu respectively.