Turkish presidential elections, which risk ending the 20-year rule of incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are headed to a May 28 runoff with opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
With 94.66% of polls counted, Erdogan won 49.6% of the vote, against 44.7% for his main opponent, according to the tally reported by the Hurriyet newspaper. Sinan Ogan and Muharrem Ince follow with 5.3% and 0.4% respectively.
To be elected president in the first round, a candidate must get 50% of the votes plus one, and Erdogan’s percentage has been declining as counting progresses.
In the legislative elections, the coalition linked to the president presents itself with 49.7% of the votes, against 34.9% of the alliance which supports Kilicdaroglu.
The opponent, however, reported a fake in the official count. “We have the advantage, we won’t sleep tonight”, assured the challenger. According to opposition forces, the official Anadolu News Agency manipulated the dissemination of results, giving more initial weight to areas where Erdogan had an advantage.
Kilicdaroglu, leader of the People’s Republican Party, a secular center-left party, triumphed in much of the Kurdish-majority south-east of the country and in large cities such as Istanbul and the capital Ankara.
Erdogan, on the other hand, reaffirmed his strength in the less developed regions and in central Turkey. Voter participation corresponded to expectations for the elections, with a turnout rate of almost 90%.
There were huge queues across the country, with supporters of Erdogan convinced to renew faith in a leader in power since 2003, first as prime minister and then as president, and opponents for whom the vote was a matter of life and death .
During the day, Erdogan said he hoped the elections would be “beneficial for Turkish democracy”, while Kilicdaroglu said that “spring” will “come back to Turkey” and “last forever”.
Source: Terra
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