59.5 percent voted for the 69-year-old on Sunday, AKP-affiliated Habertürk TV channel reported. His opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the CHP opposition therefore accounted for 34.8 percent. The information is based on the count of a good nine percent of the votes.
Preliminary results of Turkey’s presidential election on Sunday show incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan with 59.47 percent ahead of his opposition rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu with 34.79 percent, although polls had expected the gap to narrow in the fierce competition.
AKP-affiliated TV station Habertürk and other Turkish broadcasters said the results, released less than two hours after polls closed, were based on 9.1 percent of ballot boxes counted. The head of Turkey’s Supreme Election Committee had already lifted the publication ban and said to wait until the official preliminary results were announced later.
Pre-election polls favored Kilicdaroglu, who promises to reverse much of Erdogan’s two-decade legacy.
A total of around 64 million people in Germany and abroad were called to elect the president and a new parliament. Reliable results were announced for late Sunday night.
(APA)