Turkey’s presidential election heads for a second round

Ankara Türkiye –

Turkiye’s presidential election will be decided in a runoff, election officials said on Monday, after incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan edged out his main challenger but fell short of an outright victory that would extend his increasingly authoritarian rule in a third decade.

The May 28 run-off vote will determine whether the strategically located NATO country remains under the president’s firm grip or can embark on a more democratic path promised by his main rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

As Erdogan ruled for 20 years, opinion polls had suggested the race could be coming to an end and a cost of living crisis and criticism over the government’s response to a devastating earthquake in February could redraw the electoral map.

Instead, Erdogan’s retreat has been even less steep than expected – and with his alliance retaining its grip on parliament, he is now in a good position to win in the second round.

The uncertainty caused Turkey’s main stock exchange BIST-100 to fall more than 6% at Monday’s open, prompting a temporary halt in trading. But stocks rallied after trading resumed and the index was down 2.5% in the afternoon from Friday’s market close.

Western nations and foreign investors were particularly interested in the outcome because of Erdogan’s unorthodox leadership on the economy and often mercurial but successful efforts to place Turkey at the center of many major diplomatic negotiations. At a crossroads between East and West, with a coast along the Black Sea and borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria, Turkey has been a key player on issues such as war in Syria, migratory flows towards Europe, Ukrainian grain exports and NATO. expansion.

Preliminary results showed Erdogan won 49.5% of the vote, while Kilicdaroglu got 44.9% and the third candidate, Sinan Ogan, got 5.2%, according to Ahmet Yener, the head of the council. supreme electorate.

The remaining uncounted votes weren’t enough to tip Erdogan to outright victory, even though they all broke for him, Yener said. In the last presidential election in 2018, Erdogan won in the first round, with more than 52% of the vote.

Although it became clear that a runoff was likely, Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey as prime minister or president since 2003, described Sunday’s vote as a victory both for himself and for the country.

“The fact that the election results have not been finalized does not change the fact that the nation chose us,” Erdogan, 69, told supporters in the early hours of Monday.

He said he would respect the nation’s decision.

Kilicdaroglu sounded hopeful, tweeting around the time the run-off was announced: “Don’t lose hope…We will rise up and win this election together.”

Kilicdaroglu, 74, and his party have lost all previous presidential and parliamentary elections since he took power in 2010, but raised their votes this time.

Right-wing candidate Ogan did not say who he would support if the election ends in a runoff. He is believed to have received support from nationalist voters eager for change after two decades under Erdogan, but unconvinced by the ability of the six-party alliance led by Kilicdaroglu to govern.

Election results showed that the alliance led by Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party appeared to retain its majority in the 600-seat parliament, although the assembly lost much of its power after a referendum that gave the presidency additional narrowly adopted legislative powers. in 2017.

Erdogan’s AKP and its allies won 321 seats in the National Assembly, while the opposition won 213 and the remaining 66 went to a pro-Kurdish alliance, according to preliminary results.

Howard Eissenstat, associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at St. Lawrence University in New York, said the results would likely give Erdogan an advantage in a possible runoff because voters would not want not a “divided government”.

As in previous years, Erdogan ran a highly controversial campaign. He portrayed Kilicdaroglu, who had received support from the country’s pro-Kurdish party, colluding with “terrorists” and supporting what he called “deviant” LGBTQ2S+ rights. In a bid to woo voters hit hard by inflation, he raised wages and pensions and subsidized electricity and gas bills, while boosting the defense industry and infrastructure projects from Turkiye.

Kilicdaroglu, for his part, campaigned on a promise to reverse crackdowns on free speech and other forms of democratic backsliding, as well as fix an economy battered by high inflation and currency devaluation.

But as the results came in, it appeared that these elements had not rattled the electorate as expected: Turkey’s conservative heartland voted overwhelmingly for the ruling party, the main opposition of Kilicdaroglu winning most of the western and southern coastal provinces. The pro-Kurdish Green Left Party, YSP, won the predominantly Kurdish provinces in the southeast.

Results reported by the state-run Anadolu agency showed Erdogan’s party was dominant in the quake-hit region, winning 10 out of 11 provinces in a region that has traditionally backed the president. This is despite criticism of his government’s slow response to the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people.

Nearly 89% of eligible voters in Turkey cast their ballots and more than half of overseas voters turned out to vote. Voter turnout in Turkey has traditionally been high, although the government has suppressed freedom of speech and assembly over the years and especially since a coup attempt in 2016.

Erdogan blamed the failed coup on supporters of a former ally, the cleric Fethullah Gulen, and launched a full-scale crackdown on officials with alleged ties to Gulen and pro-Kurdish politicians.

Critics argue that the president’s authoritarian style is responsible for a painful cost-of-living crisis. The latest official statistics put inflation at around 44%, down from a peak of around 86%. The price of vegetables became a campaign issue for the opposition, which used an onion as a symbol.

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Bilginsoy reported from Istanbul. Associated Press writer Cinar Kiper contributed from Bodrum, Turkiye