ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan was leading his rival with a quarter of Sunday’s polls votes counted, state-run media reported. According to official media, he was winning 54.3 percent of the vote with 25.7 % of the votes counted, while opposition party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu had 39.8 % of the vote.
Counting is under way in Turkey as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a tough challenge following 20-year in power. Six opposition parties have formed an alliance, picking opposition political leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu as their candidate for the President. If either candidate can secure half the presidential vote, they will be declared winner; failing that, the contest will go to a run-off.
People in Turkey voted Sunday in a historic election that could extend President Tayyip Erdogan’s two-decade hold on power. AFP reported that Turnout was expected to be massive in what has successfully turned into a referendum on Turkey’s longest-serving political leader and his party.
“We want change, ” farmer Mehmet Topaloglu told the media following voting amid the ruins left by a deadly February quake that razed the city of Antakya and other areas of the southeast.
Turkey’s historic elections
President Erdogan has steered the country of 85 million people through one of its most transformative and divisive eras in the post-Ottoman country’s 100-year history. Ankara has grown into a military and geopolitical heavyweight that plays key roles in matters from Syria to Ukraine.
Turkey’s footprint in both Europe and the Arab world makes the election’s result as vital for Washington and Brussels as it is for Syria and Russia. “My hope to God is that following the counting concludes this day, the result is good for the future of the country, for democracy,” President Erdogan said after casting his vote in Istanbul.
President Erdogan’s first decade of economic renewal and warming ties with Europe was followed by a 2nd one filled with political and social turmoil. Erdogan responded to a failed military coup attempt in 2016.
The appearance of Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his alliance — a group that forms a coalition that President Erdogan excelled at copying throughout his political career — gives foreign partners and Turkish people a clear alternative.
Polls show that the secular opposition political leader is within touching distance of breaking the 50 % threshold needed to win in the 1st round.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu said that they all missed democracy in the country. He expressed the remarks after voting in l Ankara.
Heavy Turnout
High turnout is widely expected in Turkey. Opposition leaders said some ballot boxes in several cities were full by mid of the day. The last election saw President Erdogan win 52.5 % on a turnout of over 86 %.
Polls show that President Erdogan’s alliance is edging out the opposition parties in the parliamentary elections. But the opposition parties would win a majority if it gained support from a new leftist political alliance that represents the Kurdish vote.
