2023-05-28 05:28:47
The runoff election for the presidency in Turkey has begun. Since 8:00 a.m. local time (7:00 a.m. CEST) on Sunday morning, citizens have been able to vote for either incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or his challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu. The polling stations are open until Sunday afternoon (4:00 p.m. CEST). Preliminary results are expected in the evening.
The 69-year-old Erdogan is the favorite in the voting. Although he received the most votes in the first round of the election two weeks ago, he missed the necessary absolute majority. Kilicdaroglu ended up about 4.5 percentage points behind the Islamic conservative head of state, who has been in charge of the country for 20 years.
Around 61 million people are invited to vote. Turkish citizens in Austria have already voted. Once again a record participation was recorded in this country. According to the Turkish Embassy in Vienna, a total of 67,726 votes were counted. This corresponds to a turnout of 60.47 percent of the 112,000 eligible voters or 4.3 percentage points more than in the first round of voting. In the first round, 72 percent of Turkish voters in Austria voted for Erdogan.
The elections are generally considered free, but not fair. Sunday also marks the anniversary of the 2013 Gezi protests, which were critical of the government. Against the background of increasingly hostile sentiment towards refugees, the issue of migration played a major role in the election campaign. According to official figures, around 3.4 million Syrian refugees live in Turkey. The election also takes place against the background of a currency crisis and the devastating earthquakes in February.
Kilicdaroglu is head of the social democratic party CHP and represents a broad coalition of six parties. Erdogan became prime minister in 2003 and has been president since 2014. Since the introduction of a presidential system five years ago, he has had far-reaching powers.
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