Presidential race between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu appears likely to result in a runoff in two weeks’ time. By Graham Russell in The Guardian on May 15, 2023.
Tens of millions of Turkish voters went to the polls on Sunday to cast their vote in the presidential and parliamentary elections. Here is where the vote stands at the moment:
- A run-off election is looking increasingly likely between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu after neither appeared likely to reach the 50% threshold to win the presidential race outright.
- The state-owned Anadolu news agency has Erdoğan on 49.24% and Kılıçdaroğlu on 45.06% but there have been discrepancies between the data given out by state media and the Supreme Election Council (YSK), which is overseeing the election.
- Any second round of voting is likely to take place on 28 May.
- Speaking in the early hours of Monday, Erdoğan said he believed he had enough votes to win the first round outright but that he would accept a runoff, and accused unnamed others of trying to “deceive the nation” by claiming they were in the lead.
- Kılıçdaroğlu said he would accept a runoff, and would win it, saying: “Despite all of his lies and attacks, Erdoğan did not receive the desired outcome. No one should be enthusiastic about this being a done deal. The election is not won on the balcony,” he said, in an apparent reference to Erdoğan’s speech venue.
- The YSK said more than 91% of the vote has been counted, but that there have been long delays in tallying up votes from overseas. The YSK blamed a rise in the number of voters abroad and parties running this year.
- Kılıçdaroğlu and potential kingmaker Sinan Oğan – who has garnered about 5% of the vote – voiced concern about the pace of the vote count. Kılıçdaroğlu said some counts were being blocked by repeated objections. “Do not block the will of this nation. I call out to our democracy workers on the field. Never leave the ballot boxes and election boards. We are here until every single vote is counted,” he tweeted.
- Oğan said he had heard of overseas votes being “manipulated”. “Vote counting is not done in a healthy environment. I warn the YSK [the Supreme Election Council]. Take the necessary measures immediately and ensure that the vote counting processes are carried out quickly. In addition, we will not allow a fait accompli with a manipulation of foreign votes.” He did not provide evidence for his claims.
- In preliminary results from the parliamentary elections, state news agency Anadolu reported Erdoğan’s governing coalition had secured 49.38% of the overall vote, while the opposition coalition has 35.16%, with potentially another 10 percentage points if adding votes from the Kurdish-majority Peoples’ Democratic party or HDP (which ran under the Green Left party) and other socialist parties. Anadolu said 96.39% of ballot boxes had been opened, which does not necessarily mean votes counted.
- The share of the parliamentary vote for Erdoğan’s AKP party has shrunk substantially from prior legislative elections, with the reported result the worst in at least 20 years, when the AKP came to power in 2002.
- The overall parliamentary result so far suggests a victory for a range of nationalist parties, but a surprise loss for the six-party opposition coalition headed by Kılıçdaroğlu, which had expected to clinch a majority. Kılıçdaroğlu had pledged to restore a parliamentary democracy system – rather than Erdoğan’s presidential one – if successful.
- The lira fell against the euro as investors voiced disappointment that Erdogan’s era of unconventional economics does not appear to be coming to an immediate end.