After the results of this Sunday, Türkiye is heading for a second round of its presidential elections. In this sense, the scrutiny of 93.02% of the polling stations showed that both the president, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the opposition candidate Kemal Kiliçdaroglu obtained less than half of the necessary votes to be appointed as president.
For his part, Erdogan68 years old, achieved 49.7% of the voteswhile his opponent Kilicdaroglu74, accumulated 44.59%. The data comes from the public news agency Anatolia, and the official results have not yet been published. The presidential vote will decide not only who leads Turkey, but also whether it returns to a more secular and democratic path, how it will manage its dire cost-of-living crisis and key relations with Russia, the Middle East and the West.
Is the end of the Erdogan era near?
With those numbers, the two favorite candidates should stand for a second round on May 28. To ensure victory in the first round, candidates need at least 50% of the vote plus one. A second round would be unprecedented in that country of 85 million inhabitants, a member of NATO, which this year celebrates the hundredth anniversary of the founding of its republic.
The official agency gave Erdogan as a favorite a few hours before. In that sense, Erdogan claimed a “clear advantage” over his rival, although he indicated that he was ready for a second round if necessary. “We still don’t know if the election will end in the first round, but if the people take us to a second round, we will respect that too,” Trump told supporters, adding that his ruling conservative alliance had won a “majority” in the Parlament.
In line with these statements, the opposition also positioned itself as the winner. “We are in the lead,” Kiliçdaroglu, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), posted on his Twitter account. Added to this, leading figures in his space claimed that the government was purposely slowing down the count in districts where Kiliçdaroglu enjoyed strong support. “They are challenging the count that comes out of the polls, in which we have a massive lead,” Istanbul’s opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu told reporters.
In third place is Sinan Ogan, who would achieve a significant 5.29% of the votes and whose support could be key in a second round of the elections. In this sense, the candidate explained after knowing the first results that at the moment it will not be shown in favor of any of the applicants by the Ata Alliance, a right-wing coalition. “This time there will be no announcement of who the Alliance supports in the second round,” he said, according to press reports. The decision will be made after an internal process.
Parties close to the Turkish president achieved a clear majority of 324 seats out of a total of 600 in the legislative elections held this Sunday to coincide with the presidential ones. However, the Turkish political system has been presidential since 2014, so victory in the presidential elections has much more weight.
The legislative elections produced a 49.74% of the vote for the formations that support Erdogan, according to unofficial data published by Turkish media. They are Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the New Welfare State Party (YRF) and the Greater Unity Party (BBP). The Republican People’s Party (CHP) would be the main opposition formation with 34.94% of the vote and 212 seats, while the Labor and Freedom Alliance got 9.49% and 64 seats.
The candidates asked that the polls be monitored
Both Kilicdaroglu and Erdogan appealed to their auditors not to abandon the polling stations until the last signed act is sent to avoid fraud.
“I want to appeal to our heroes of democracy: do not leave the polling stations under any circumstances until the last signed ballot box certificate is delivered“, Kiliçdaroglu posted on Twitter. Adding: “The full and correct manifestation of the will of the nation depends on your determination. You’ll see, it will be worth your fatigue.”
Later, Erdogan addressed the same social network to ask “my supporters and colleagues to stay at the polls no matter what, until the results are officially finalized”.
His message also warned against opposition speculation. “The elections have taken place in a positive and democratic atmosphere and the count is still active. Trying to announce the results hastily implies a usurpation of the national will“, he denounced.
Erdogan promised to respect the result at the pollswhich is monitored by hundreds of thousands of electoral observers from both sides, on whom it has always based its legitimacy.
The keys of the elections
In a deeply divided Türkiye after two decades of Erdogan in power, andhe duel to elect the thirteenth president of the country is very close. Just over 64 million people, who also elected their parliament, were called to vote. The participation rate for this Sunday has not yet been revealed, but the country usually has a participation greater than 80%.
In 2018, in the last presidential elections, Erdogan won the first round with more than 52.5% of the vote. A second round would imply a setback for him. For the political scientist Ahmet Insel, exiled in Paris, “Erdogan’s defeat would show that we can get out of a consolidated autocracy through the ballot box.”
Wearing a blue shirt and a tired expression, Erdogan voted in Üsküdar, a conservative neighborhood in Istanbul, where wished “a prosperous future for the country and for Turkish democracy”. The current president did not want to give any forecast, but pointed to the “enthusiasm of the voters”, particularly in the areas most affected by the earthquake on February 6, which left at least 50,000 dead.
The opposition candidate, Kiliçdaroglu, voted shortly before in Ankara. “We have missed democracy,” he declared with a smile. “You’ll see, spring will return to this country God willing and it will last forever“He added, referring to one of his slogans.
Kiliçdaroglu, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, leads a six-party coalition that ranges from the nationalist right to the liberal center-left. He also received the support of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, the third largest political force in the country.
On this occasion, the president came to the vote in a battered country by an economic crisis, with a currency devalued by half in two years and inflation that exceeded 85% in autumn, in addition to the dramatic earthquake in February, which put it into question.
His rival bets on appeasement and promises to restore the rule of law and respect the institutions, affected in the last ten years by Erdogan’s autocratic drift. According to polls, his short, calm speeches, in contrast to Erdogan’s, won over the majority of the 5.2 million young Turks voting for the first time.
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