Turkish will go to the polls again to elect their president

Ankara, May 15 (Prensa Latina) Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won most of the votes in the Sunday elections, with 49.44%, but stayed short of the 50% needed to win the elections in the first round, so he will go to a runoff in two weeks with Kemal Kilicdaroglu, from the Republican People’s Party who got 44.89%.

May 14, 2023
20:42

The other two candidates in the electoral campaign Sinan Ogan (5.3%), from the ATA Alliance, and Muharrem Ince, from the Homeland Party, who had pulled out of the race in a potential boost for Kilicdaroglu’s chances, got anyhow 0.4% of the ballots.

Ahmet Yener, the head of the Turkish election board, said that 71.64% of the votes within the country and 18.76 percent of the votes from abroad were entered into its system.

President Erdogan, who was reported to be in the capital Ankara by Turkish state media earlier in the day, made a surprise appearance in Istanbul later in the day, where he greeted supporters as he left his residence in the Istanbul district of Uskudar, local media reported.

Some opinion polls before the election had pointed to a very tight race but gave opposition Kilicdaroglu, who heads a six-party alliance, a slight lead. Two surveys on Friday even showed him above the 50% threshold, but Erdogan’s movement did much better than expected.

According to Hakan Akbas, managing director of political advisory Strategic Advisory Services, “Erdogan will have an advantage in a second vote after his alliance did far better than the opposition’s alliance.”

The runoff will take place on May 28.