The opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu is falling behind the sitting President Erdoğan by a few percentage points in the first round of the elections.
The outcome of the Turkish presidential election strongly seems to be going to the second round of voting.
of the Turkish state Anadolu (you switch to another service)– in the news agency’s calculation of the sitting president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the vote share already fell below 50 percent during Sunday evening and has decreased slightly as the count progresses. Challenging opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has accordingly tightened the gap.
Anadolu (you switch to another service)– news agency, Erdoğan’s vote share is 49.3 percent and Kılıçdaroğlu’s 45 percent, while more than 98 percent of the votes have been counted. The opposition has criticized Anadolu for manipulating the voting results it presented in Erdoğan’s favor during the counting of votes.
In the official preliminary results of the Turkish Election Commission, Erdoğan has received 49.5 and Kılıçdaroğlu 44.8 percent of the votes, while approximately 92 percent of the votes have been counted.
A candidate must receive more than half of the votes to win the election in the first round. The second round of the elections will be held on May 28.
Both candidates are ready for the second round of the elections
In his speech after midnight, Kılıçdaroğlu accused Erdoğan of slowing down the counting of votes by the AK Party by challenging the voting results in places where the opposition has a strong position.
– Do not prevent the will of the people. Let the results come and let everyone know them, Kılıçdaroğlu said in his speech.
Later in the night, Kılıçdaroğlu said that the sitting president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan got the election result he wanted.
– If our people want a second round, we will definitely win it, he said.
Erdoğan also declared in his night speech from the balcony of the central office of his AK Party that he is ready for a possible second round of the elections. He said that he still believed in his re-election already in the first round and thought that his number of votes would increase after the official results were known.
– We know we are leading by a clear margin, but we don’t know yet what the final result will be, Erdogan said.
Got the third most votes in the election Sinan Oğan is getting about 5 percent of the vote. BBC (switch to another service)Oğan has said that he will decide in the next few days who he intends to support in the second round of the elections.
Sources: AFP, AP, Reuters