2023-05-14 23:48:00
According to state media, incumbent Erdogan is leading the Turkish presidential election – but his lead over challenger Kilicdaroglu is shrinking. Erdogan declared to his cheering supporters that night that he was ready for another ballot.
A runoff election is looming in the race for the presidency in Turkey. After counting around 89 percent of the votes, Erdogan has 49.94 percent and thus below the required absolute majority, as reported by the state news agency Anadolu. Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, joint candidate of a six-party alliance, is therefore at 44.3 percent.
Erdogan appeared in front of his cheering supporters that night and declared that he was clearly ahead of his challenger. However, it will still take some time before the preliminary results are published, according to Erdogan. “Everyone has to respect the will of the people,” he said. It is not known at this point in time whether there will be a runoff election. A majority of his government alliance is emerging in Parliament.
If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes, there will be a runoff on May 28th.
dispute about vote counting
The opposition accused Erdogan’s conservative Islamic governing party of “tactical manoeuvres” when counting the votes. According to their statements, Kilicdaroglu is just ahead, the mayors of Istanbul and Ankara said at a joint press conference. Erdogan’s Islamic conservative AKP deliberately objected to the results in opposition strongholds. This makes counting slower and the result is initially in favor of the government.
Erdogan described the opposition’s statements during the ongoing vote count as “stealing the national will”. AKP spokesman Ömer Celik accused the opposition of a “dictatorial attitude” during the vote count because they announced the results early on.
Kilicdaroglu primary polls in front
In pre-election polls, Erdogan was last behind Kilicdaroglu. Voter turnout in Turkey is traditionally high, with long queues forming in front of polling stations today. More than 64 million people were entitled to vote in the presidential and parliamentary elections, including 1.5 million Turks living in Germany.
“From what we hear, at least in Germany, the turnout was higher than ever before,” said Kristian Brakel, head of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Istanbul tagesschau24. “And, as we know from the past, those German-Turks who go to the polls actually vote for the AKP in large numbers.”
allegations of tampering in Internetvideos
Around 192,000 ballot boxes were set up in Turkey. Hundreds of thousands of government and opposition observers are deployed. The head of the Turkish election commission YSK announced in the afternoon that the election had passed without any major incidents. Anadolu quoted him as saying: “The elections have gone off without any problems so far”.
However, allegations of manipulation have been raised in Internet videos: it shows, for example, how someone appears to stamp the election stamp on President Erdogan of the AKP – in Turkey ballot papers are stamped and not filled out by hand. Another video shows someone marking Erdogan’s AKP on several ballot papers. Election observers from the CHP are said to have lodged an objection with the Turkish electoral authorities.
“The President uses his position of power”
The pro-Kurdish opposition party HDP also confirmed a media report to the dpa news agency, according to which election observers from the sister party YSP were attacked in the south-eastern Turkish city of Mardin. The dispute broke out after observers denied more than one family member access to the polling booth.
According to Brakel, such incidents have already occurred in past elections – especially in the south-east of the country. However, most people are generally able to cast their votes “relatively freely” on election day. The election campaign, on the other hand, was unfair: “Of course, the president is given a lot more time in most of the government-controlled media. He uses his position of power and the funds available to him to make election gifts,” said Brakel tagesschau24.
Erdogan has more power than ever
Since the introduction of a presidential system five years ago, the 69-year-old AKP politician Erdogan has never had more power and can largely rule without parliament. Critics fear that the country, with a population of around 85 million, could slide completely into autocracy if he wins again. The vote in the NATO country is also being closely observed internationally.
Challenger Kilicdaroglu is considered a level-headed politician. He comes from the eastern Turkish province of Tunceli and belongs to the Alevi religious minority. The opposition leader wants to restore the independence of institutions like the central bank and get high inflation under control. He stands for a rapprochement with Germany and the EU, but also for a stricter migration policy.
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