Veteran Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has appeared on track to win the country’s presidential election and extend his rule into a third decade.
After a hard-fought campaign that raised hopes of an opposition breakthrough, Erdogan won 49.3% of the vote in the presidential race on Monday, well ahead of his main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu with 45%, according to preliminary results from state media.
With no candidate getting more than 50%, the tally as it stands would send Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu to a second round of voting on May 28, but with the incumbent as the heavy favorite.
As well as building a lead of more than 2 million votes over Kılıçdaroğlu in the presidential race, Erdogan’s right-wing coalition looked set to win an outright majority in Turkey’s parliament. electionstrengthening its position in the event of a second round.
Erdoğan’s performance in Sunday’s vote reversed opinion polls that gave Kılıçdaroğlu a substantial lead in the final days of the hard-fought campaign.
The 74-year-old opposition leader had built a broad alliance of centrists, nationalists and conservative parties and enjoyed external support from Turkey’s main Kurdish bloc in his bid to end what he calls the Erdoğan’s “one man rule”.
The growing likelihood that Erdoğan’s unorthodox economic policies will continue has hit the country’s financial markets, which rallied late last week after polls gave Kılıçdaroğlu the edge.
The cost of protection against a default on Turkish debt jumped on Monday, with the spread on five-year credit default swaps jumping more than 100 basis points to 608 basis points, the highest level since November , according to data from Bloomberg.
The Turkish stock market, dominated by local investors, also fell, with the benchmark Bist 100 index slipping 4.4% and the banking sub-index down around 9%. The lira remained close to a record level.
“Markets will be nervous between the first and second rounds because Erdoğan’s economic policies simply don’t match up,” said Timothy Ash, emerging markets strategist at BlueBay Asset Management.
Investors worried about Erdoğan’s unorthodox economic policies, including cutting interest rates despite scorching inflation.
There are also serious concerns about the country’s dwindling foreign exchange reserves and the rise of special savings accounts that would force the government to pay out if the pound suddenly drops.
Cost-of-living pressures, a devastating earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people in February, and dissatisfaction with Erdoğan’s authoritarian style of rule have reinvigorated an opposition that believes it has its better luck yet to wrest control from the most senior Turkish leader.
But Erdoğan again mobilized his support base by highlighting corner issues, including the opposition’s tacit cooperation with a pro-Kurdish party he accuses of links to terrorism, as well as generous salary increases and other gifts.
Erdoğan paused before declaring victory overnight in a speech from the balcony of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) headquarters, the traditional venue he has used to celebrate most of his dozens of previous victories. left.
The president appeared confident, singing a pop tune to thousands of flag-waving supporters and declaring: “We are already ahead of our nearest rival [and] expect that number to increase with the official results.
A simultaneous parliamentary election gave Erdoğan’s right-wing alliance a comfortable majority, which will help him retain his grip on the economy and other facets of Turkish life if he wins the runoff.
Kılıçdaroğlu, whose campaign slogan was “finish it in the first round,” still took on a defiant tone early Monday, saying, “We will absolutely win the second round…and bring democracy.
A third candidate, ultra-nationalist Sinan Oğan, won 5.2% and was ousted from the race. Oğan said he was open to negotiations with Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu to deliver his voters to the second round. But he said any deal would require sidelining the main pro-Kurdish movement, which has won seats in parliament as the Green Left party – a constituency Kılıçdaroğlu needs in any second Erdoğan challenge. .
Kılıçdaroğlu’s allies filed repeated complaints on Sunday evening about the publication of the vote tally, claiming that state media was trying to “deceive” the public by pandering to Erdoğan’s position. But the opposition, which initially claimed it was significantly ahead of Erdoğan, toned down objections as the vote count progressed.
Additional reporting by Mary McDougall in London
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