The Turks voted. 61 million citizens of this country were called today to take part in the second round of presidential elections. Polling stations closed at 4:00 p.m. (Peninsula time) and vote counting began. The current president, the Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is the favorite in the polls ahead of the opposition alliance’s centre-left candidate, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu. Most of the polls released last week gave Erdogan a clear victory with 51.4% to 54% of the vote after third-placed candidate Sinan Organ gave his approval in the first ballot. Ahmet Yener, President of the Supreme Electoral Committee, has reported that the President gets 53.41% of the vote, compared to 46.59% for the opposition candidate and leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Erdogan has appeared in Istanbul’s Uskudar district to announce his election victory. He sang a song for his supporters and was visibly happy: “We have completed the second round of the presidential election and I thank those who voted for the future of their children.” “As we have remained true to you for twenty years” , continued the leader of the AKP (Justice and Development Party), “we will be for five more years.” This love does not end here, as we said, this blessed path does not end here. The Turkish President also railed against his rival: “Bye, bye, bye Kemal.”
This is the first time the country has entered a second round in the presidential election. If the opinion polls prove correct, Erdogan will stay in the position he has held for the last 20 years for another five years. The president came close to confirming his mandate in the first ballot, winning 49.52% compared to 44.88% of the votes won by Kiliçdaroglu. Sinan Organ took third place with 5.17%. Although the polls show Erdogan the victor, they all failed on the first ballot, giving the opposition candidate far more electoral hopes than he ultimately achieved.
Election day passed quietly, despite a few isolated incidents and complaints of irregularities from the opposition. “The second ballot is over. So far we have not received any negative information affecting the elections. “Inquiries and complaints about irregularities will be considered,” Yener said on local media. However, the head of the Social Democratic Party (CHP) in Istanbul, Canan Kaftancioglu, expressed distrust of the recount: “I appeal to the public to keep track of their ballots at every ballot box.” Make sure that the votes that come out of the ballot box , also are the ones you put inside,” he assured.
Despite the difficulty of overcoming the result, the opposition did not throw in the towel. In the short campaign for the second round, the opposition candidate abandoned the positive narrative he had previously championed and reinforced nationalist and anti-immigrant discourse, filling cities with posters calling for the expulsion of Syrian refugees and blaming them fleeing accused of high prices and lack of jobs. The idea is to attract those who did not vote on May 14, as well as voters for the third supporting candidate, Sinan Ogan, who however chose to support Erdogan.
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The visibly tired president voted at noon in the Uskudar district in the Asian part of Istanbul. After casting his vote, Erdogan assured that “no country in the world has a participation rate of 90%, but Turkey has almost reached it.” I ask my fellow citizens to vote tirelessly,” reports France Presse. At practically the same time, the opposition candidate went to his polling station in Ankara. “I encourage citizens to vote so that true democracy and freedom can come to the country; to get rid of an authoritarian government,” Kiliçdaroglu said after the vote.
It is likely that the ultra-nationalist Turkish vote distribution was spread, albeit not evenly, between the two candidates (there are parties of this bias supporting Erdogan and others supporting Kiliçdaroglu), predictably along the secularism-Islamism axis. “I voted for Ogan in the first ballot, but I would never vote for Erdogan because I am a defender of Ataturk,” a pro-secular voter told the newspaper.
After the first round, the European Union called on Turkey to address deficiencies in the electoral process identified by international observers. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe accused Turkey of being biased against Erdogan and some irregularities and democratic restrictions in media coverage of the election campaign, but did not classify them as fraud. “The EU attaches the utmost importance to the need for transparent, inclusive and credible elections on equal terms,” said High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell and Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi in a joint statement.
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