Erdoğan claims Turkish election victory with count almost complete

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claimed victory in Sunday’s deciding second round as early results put the Turkish president on track to extend his reign into a third decade.

Erdoğan won around 53% of the vote, compared to 48% for his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, according to calculations by the state-run Anadolu news agency, after more than 97% of the ballot boxes were opened.

A victory would cap an extraordinary campaign for Erdoğan, who has entered this election cycle at his most vulnerable level since becoming Turkey’s first leader in 2003, with the country in the grip of an acute cost crisis. life and the most organized opposition in years.

“Without making any concessions to our democracy, our development or our goals, together we have opened the door to Turkey’s century. Men and women, young and old, workers and retirees, all segments of our nation have realized our dreams and our enthusiasm together,” Erdoğan said in a victory speech in Istanbul on Sunday evening, delivered from the top of a bus under the applause from the fans.

At an Erdoğan stronghold in Istanbul, supporters of the president honked their horns, while children chanted “Recep Tayyip Erdoğan”.

Sunday’s second-round vote was presented by both candidates as a referendum on Turkey’s future, exactly 100 years after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded the republic.

The opposition has warned that a new five-year term for Erdoğan, who dominated Turkish politics for two decades, would send the country irreversibly down a path where democracy and human rights were steadily eroded, while that the veteran president has accused his opponents of siding with terrorists and the West at Turkey’s expense.

Erdoğan has emphasized family values, the fight against terrorism and Turkey’s growing role on the world stage in a series of fiery campaign rallies that have helped galvanize support from conservative and pious voters.

Support from Erdoğan’s base in the heart of Turkey’s Anatolia helped the president defy expectations in the May 14 first round of elections, in which he beat Kılıçdaroğlu by a larger margin than expected. The contest went to the second round on Sunday, with none of the candidates garnering more than 50% of the vote.

The 69-year-old president’s parliamentary bloc, a coalition that includes his Justice and Development party and the Nationalist Movement party also beat expectations in the first round, retaining its majority in the legislature.

Kılıçdaroğlu had pledged to revive the economy by reversing many of Erdoğan’s policies, while returning the country to a parliamentary democracy from the executive presidency system introduced after a referendum in 2017.

After a surprisingly weak performance in the first round of elections on May 14, the 74-year-old has shifted from a promising “spring will come” campaign to harsher nationalist rhetoric.

But Kılıçdaroğlu received a blow when Sinan Oğan, the nationalist eminence who finished third in the first round of elections, threw his support behind Erdoğan, calling on his voters to support the incumbent president.

International election monitors said the first round of elections was largely free, but they also noted that the campaigns had been far from fair. Erdoğan relied heavily on state resources, offering freebies such as free gasoline and 10 GB of internet to students. He also raised wages for public sector workers and raised the minimum wage.

The country’s government-affiliated media provided comprehensive coverage of a series of Erdoğan events, including the opening of a gas processing facility in the Black Sea and the inauguration of a warship.

Erdoğan’s attention should quickly shift to the country’s $900 billion economy.

The lira hit a record high this week, topping 20 against the U.S. dollar, as investors worried about Erdoğan’s unconventional economic policies, which included steep rate cuts despite acute inflation.

A fall in Turkey’s foreign exchange reserves, which has accelerated in recent weeks, has amplified the sense of concern among international and local analysts.

Erdoğan said this week that the country’s economy, financial system and banks remained “sound”, adding that unidentified Gulf states had provided funds to ease the pressures.