Ankara: Turkiye’s electoral chief said that the presidential race will go to a second round on May 28 as incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan fell just short of an outright victory.
Ahmet Yener, the head of Supreme Electoral Board, said on Monday that even when the remaining 35,874 uncounted overseas votes were distributed, no one would secure the majority needed to win the elections outright.
He said preliminary results showed Erdogan won 49.51 per cent, his main challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu won 44.88 per cent and the third candidate Sinan Ogan won 5.17 per cent. Even if all uncounted votes went to Erdogan, his votes would move up to 49.54 per cent, Yener said.
Turkiye’s presidential elections appeared headed for a runoff on Monday, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pulling ahead of his chief challenger, but falling short of an outright victory that would extend his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade.
The vote will determine whether the strategically located NATO country remains under the president’s firm grip or can embark on a more democratic course promised by his main rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
While Erdogan has governed for 20 years, opinion polls had suggested that run could be coming to an end and that a cost-of-living crisis and criticism over the government’s response to a devastating February earthquake might redraw the electoral map.
Instead, Erdogan’s retreat was still less marked than predicted and with his alliance retaining its hold on the parliament, he is now in a good position to win in the second round.
The uncertainty drove the main Turkish stock exchange BIST-100 more than 6 per cent lower at the open Monday, prompting a temporary halt in trading. But shares recovered some after trading resumed, and the index was 2.5 per cent lower in the afternoon compared to the market close on Friday.
Western nations and foreign investors were particularly interested in the outcome because of Erdogan’s unorthodox leadership of the economy and often mercurial but successful efforts to put Turkiye at the centre of many major diplomatic negotiations.
At a crossroads between East and West, with a coast along the Black Sea and borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria, Turkiye has
been a key player on issues including the war in Syria, migration flows to Europe, exports of Ukraine’s grain, and NATO’s expansion.
With 99.4 per cent of the domestic votes and 84 per cent of the overseas votes counted, Erdogan had 49.4 per cent of the votes, with Kilicdaroglu garnering 45 per cent, Ahmet Yener, the head of the Supreme Electoral Board, told reporters. A third candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan received 5.2 per cent.
In the last presidential election in 2018, Erdogan grabbed 52.6 per cent of the vote in the first round, winning
outright.