A close presidential election in Turkey – a vote that will end President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 20 years in power – looked increasingly headed for a run-off as a tense count continued Sunday night.
Mr Erdogan’s party and the opposition, led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, are trying to gain momentum for their candidates as it seems no candidate will exceed the 50 percent threshold required for an outright victory. Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the People’s Republican Party (CHP) are fighting over control of the ballot count, a sign of how chaotic this contest is.
Expectations ahead of the presidential vote, which will take place alongside parliamentary elections, are so close. G A run-off between the pair will take place on 28 May.
Counts given by pro-government and pro-opposition sources differed significantly as midnight approached. Results compiled by the state-owned Anadolu news agency showed Erdogan holding 49.9 percent of the vote compared to 44.4 percent for Mr Kilicdaroglu, who had 91 percent of the votes counted. Another poll by the opposition Anka news agency showed that out of 95 percent of the ballots counted, Mr Erdogan had 49 percent and Mr Kilicdaroglu 45 percent. Another count by Mr Kilicdaroglu’s CHP Party, showed him with 47.2 per cent of the vote compared to Mr Erdogan’s 46.8 per cent.
Opposition leaders accused the state news agency, Anadolu, of showing a distorted count that favored Mr Erdogan. The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, and the mayor of Ankara, Mansur Yavas, both publicly criticized the vote counting process and urged voters to reject them. “We are in the lead,” Mr Kilicdaroglu tweeted. Erdogan then returned to Twitter, saying: “While the election was held in a positive and democratic atmosphere and the vote counting is still going on, trying to announce the results quickly would mean usurping the national will.”
Turkey’s election authority, the Supreme Electoral Board, said it was providing numbers to competing political parties “immediately” but would not announce official results until counting was complete. At 0100 local time [GMT 2200] it officially logged 69 percent of the votes.
Ultra-nationalist presidential candidate Sinan Ogan, who results showed might receive about 5 percent of the vote, downplayed the chances that Erdogan or Mr Kilicdaroglu would secure a clear victory.
Verbal sparring between candidates during the count followed a generally calm and orderly voting day, ending a campaign season marred by violence and divisive rhetoric. Long lines formed at schools that were turned into polling stations. Turks usually vote for national elections in very high numbers, and today’s turnout is higher than in previous ballots.
Voters cited concerns about the economy, which has been stagnant for years, as the main issue driving their votes, as well as the government’s slow response to the devastating earthquake in southeastern Turkey. which killed 50,000 people in February. But there are also concerns about the country’s authoritarian drift under Mr Erdogan, whose party has dominated the country’s politics for more than two decades. This has allowed Mr Erdogan to mold the country in his image, with crackdowns on dissent a regular part of his years in power.
“Without democracy and freedom, you can’t have any economy,” said Nil Adula, a 74-year-old earlier in the day, as he prepared to vote in central İstanbul. “The most important thing is that the justice system works properly.”
Voters also elected lawmakers to fill Turkey’s 600-seat parliament, which has lost most of its legislative powers under Mr Erdogan’s executive presidency. Mr Kilicdaroglu and the six-party opposition coalition he leads are seeking to win the presidency and a majority in parliament, promising to enact sweeping reforms that would return the country to a parliamentary democracy.
The elections are closely watched by the countries of the West, the Middle East, NATO and Moscow, as the united opposition tries to remove a leader who has concentrated almost all the power of the state in his hands and works to use more influence on the world stage.
Erdogan, along with the United Nations, helped broker an agreement between Ukraine and Russia that allowed Ukrainian grain to reach the rest of the world from Black Sea ports despite Russia’s war on Ukraine. The deal is set to expire in days, and Turkey hosted talks last week to keep it alive.
However, Mr Erdogan has also resisted Sweden’s bid to join Nato and has been a difficult partner for the West at times, unafraid to speak tough or dig in his heels. unnerving the Kremlin, while the president also clashed with several Middle Eastern leaders.
The outcome is always likely to depend on the fractions of swing voters that include ethnic Kurds – who vote for the AKP or leftist parties traditionally – Turkish nationalists, and at least 5 million first-timers. voter whose allegations remain unclear.
Erdogan struggled to connect with Generation Z voters ahead of the vote, who appeared unmoved by his appeals to conservative and Islamic values.
“I see voting as a tool to change and influence the government from within,” said Idris Sinan, an 18-year-old high school student and first-time voter, as he exited a polling station.
“We have been ruled by this party, the AKP, for 20 years… our country [has] will be poor and more lawless,” he added.
Mr Erdogan has also alienated ethnic Kurds, who once voted for him in large numbers but – in a historic shift – have embraced the secular centre-left candidacy of Mr Kilicdaroglu. “The election for us is about democracy and cultural and political rights,” said Mehmet Uzum, a 52-year-old Kurdish businessman in Istanbul’s Sultanbeyli district.
He said that Mr Erdogan and the AKP had become poisonous to the Kurds since they joined forces with the nationalist National Movement Party (MHP).
“We had many AKP friends but they switched to the CHP because of the economy and all the religious talk,” said his daughter, Gizem, 22.
But many voters say they are convinced by Mr Erdogan’s nationalist stance which the president says will put Turkey’s security first. Also included are attempts to associate the opposition with the West and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an outlawed separatist group that the US and EU have labeled a terrorist organization.
“We are not for America. We are not for the PKK,” said Faruk Baba, a 67-year-old clothing store owner in Istanbul’s Fatih district.
When reminded that the Taliban in Afghanistan endorsed Mr Erdogan he replied: “The Taliban are Muslims. We are Muslims.”
Among AKP supporters, many have cited conspiracy theories floated by Mr Erdogan in recent weeks that the opposition is a proxy for Western powers.
“Erdogan stood firm for us,” said Ziya Uztok, a 73-year-old from Uskudar. “Kilicdaroglu is an American project.”
“I accept Kilicdaroglu as a fellow citizen, but I will not vote for him,” he said.
However, the country’s economic weakness threatens the steady support that conservative Turks have given Mr Erdogan for years. In a bid to gain support from citizens hit hard by inflation, the president has raised wages and pensions and subsidized electricity and gas bills, while showing off Turkey’s defense and infrastructure projects.
On a side street in Fatih, enthusiastic CHP organizers gathered food to give to their volunteers throughout the district.
“Before there were some neighborhoods where we could not go to the campaign,” said Cigdem Gulduval, a local official of the opposition party.
“Now they are more receptive. They all pay high prices to the same butchers as us. They pay the same gas bills. They have to wait three or four months to get an appointment with the doctors. “