Both incumbent Erdoğan and challenger Kılıçdaroğlu remain below 50 percent. A defeat for both candidates. Challenger Kılıçdaroğlu was also hoping for a first round win. The government and the opposition accuse each other of sabotage.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s political future will be decided in a runoff on May 28. After Sunday’s election, Erdoğan was ahead of opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, but below the 50 percent mark he would need to win in the first round. Erdoğan’s coalition government suffered losses in parliamentary elections held around the same time, but managed to retain a majority in parliament.
Erdoğan won 49.34 percent after tallying 98 percent of votes in the state-run Anadolu news agency in the morning. Kılıçdaroğlu reached 45 percent. According to the private Anka news agency, Erdoğan also got 49%, while Kilıçdaroğlu got 45%. According to Anka and Anadolu, the third presidential candidate, right-wing nationalist Sinan Oğan, could count on five percent of the vote. In the last election in 2018, Erdoğan won with 52.6 percent on the first ballot.
AKP Alliance narrowly loses majority in parliament
According to Anadolu, the ruling alliance led by Erdoğan’s AKP party lost the majority in the parliamentary elections with 49.3% of the vote. The alliance around Kilicdaroglu gets only 35.1% of the votes. Even with the support of the alliance around the pro-Kurdish HDP (10.5%), they would not have an absolute majority. The AKP would have lost about six percentage points compared to 2018.
Erdoğan and the AKP lost votes in Istanbul and Ankara, as well as in southern provinces such as Antalya, the southeast and the Kurdish northeast. Erdogan found himself “far ahead” in the presidential election. However, it will be some time before the preliminary results are published, he said late on Monday in front of supporters in Ankara. “Everyone has to respect the will of the people,” he said.
But if the preliminary results were confirmed, the opposition would still have missed their most important goals. Kılıçdaroğlu expected a first round victory. He appeared to the press that night along with party leaders from his six-party electoral alliance. “Despite his defamation and insults, Erdogan has not achieved the result he had hoped for,” he said. The opposition will win and bring democracy to the country.
Dispute over counting methods
The opposition accused Anadolu Agency and Erdoğan’s ruling AKP party of withholding the voting results to make Kılıçdaroğlu’s share of votes appear smaller. Results were published late, especially in big cities where opposition was particularly strong. The AKP rejected the allegation of wrongdoing.
AKP spokesman Ömer Celik accused the CHP of sabotage. Istanbul Mayor, CHP politician Ekrem İmamoğlu, on the other hand, accused government agencies of releasing false preliminary figures that covered up official Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s figures. Both sides said they saw themselves ahead of the polls.
Kılıçdaroğlu urged his supporters to remain at the polls until the end of the count. “Never leave the ballot boxes and election commissions,” he said late on Monday in Ankara. “We’ll stay here until all the votes are counted.”
Tough election campaign awaits
Turkey faces a tough election campaign in the two weeks leading up to the second round. Erdoğan accused Kılıçdaroğlu and the opposition of collaborating with the Kurdish terrorist organization PKK in the final days before Sunday’s elections. The opposition accuses the president and government of failing economic policy, repression of dissidents and corruption.
In 2017, Erdoğan implemented a presidential system that gave him great powers. Kılıçdaroğlu wants to abolish this system and return to parliamentary democracy. When the Erdoğan era came to an end, things would also change in economic and foreign policy. Kılıçdaroğlu announced that he will strengthen fundamental rights and improve Turkey’s relations with the West, which have been in permanent crisis for years.