The incumbent president decided to give his traditional balcony speech first after the election. He said his party was in a clear lead in the early hours of Monday.
15.5. 4:55
Turkey’s current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s vote share in the presidential election has dropped below 50 percent, Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu reported.
To win in the first round, more than half the votes are needed. It is therefore likely that the elections will proceed to a second round, which will take place on May 28, if necessary.
According to Anadolu, Erdogan, 69, was getting 49.4 percent of the vote, slightly more than 96 percent of the total votes when it was counted. For Erdogan’s main rival, opposition candidate Kemal Kilikdaroglu, the news agency reported 44.9 percent of the vote.
Erdogan appeared before his supporters in Ankara early Monday and claimed he had a clear lead, although the final result was not yet clear.
– I am sure that we will continue to serve the people in the next five years, he said with great enthusiasm.
According to the British Broadcasting Company BBC, Erdogan has given a speech from the balcony of his party’s central office after winning every election. According to the BBC, he mentioned in his speech that he had already decided to give his traditional balcony speech this time.
There were differing views on who would lead the race when votes for Turkey’s current leadership and its challenger opposition were tallied. In the night, the opposition camp presented its point of view on the counting of votes.
– We are at the forefront, 74-year-old Kilikdaroglu said on Twitter.
Sunday’s election is most likely to result in a second round, according to the BBC, as the remaining votes will come from areas where a majority supports the opposition. In addition, the ballot boxes for which Erdogan has demanded a recount are also remaining.
According to a BBC report, vote counting has slowed down considerably as the prospect of a second round looms large.
According to the opposition, the reason behind the slowdown is that Erdogan’s ruling party has repeatedly contested results in which opposition candidates are leading.
According to Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, as many as 7 million votes have been withheld from the vote-counting process due to these protests, the BBC reports. All these votes are said to have come from pro-opposition areas. Imamoglu says Erdogan’s party used the same strategy in the last seven or eight elections.
According to Imamoglu, according to the opposition’s internal vote count, Kilikdaroglu would have received 49 percent of the vote and Erdogan only 45. According to the calculations of the opposition, the second round still cannot be avoided.
Sunday’s elections in Turkey were a referendum of sorts on whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s more than twenty-year rule would continue or the Muslim-majority country would move in a more secular, or secular, direction.
The presidential election was getting even prettier, and as expected, people turned up in great numbers. According to opposition representatives, some ballot boxes had already been filled by mid-afternoon, and based on media reports, voter turnout was expected to be close to 90 percent.
