ANKARA — Turkey’s incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will face main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in a runoff election on May 28 after neither candidate crossed the 50% threshold in the first round on Sunday.
Turkey’s High Election Board announced the unofficial results on Monday afternoon local time. The board’s head Ahmet Yener said that Erdogan received 49.51% of the votes, finishing the race nearly five percentage points ahead of Kilicdaroglu, whose vote share stood at 44.88%. Far-right fringe candidate Sinan Ogan, meanwhile, received 5.17% of the vote.
In televised remarks, Yener announced that campaigning for the runoff has opened. He added that the counting of absentee ballots was still ongoing but that the remaining uncounted ballots couldn’t take any frontrunners across the threshold.
Voting at home witnessed a higher turnout at 88.92% than the previous parliamentary and presidential elections, according to the initial figures. The official results will be announced on Friday.
The announcement on Monday followed a long night that witnessed the rival campaigns of Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu each claiming the lead in Sunday’s high-stakes presidential elections.
Erdogan, who took an early lead in the unofficial returns carried by both the state-run Anadolu news agency and Anka, which is close to the opposition, maintained the gap until the voting concluded.
Addressing his supporters at his party’s headquarters in Ankara early Monday, Erdogan said the Nation’s Alliance led by his ruling party emerged victorious from the parliamentary elections and sounded confident about the upcoming runoff.
Kilicdaroglu, meanwhile, expressed hope to win the runoff in televised remarks in Ankara early Monday. “We will surely, surely win the runoff election. … For the next 15 days, we will do our best — together with our nation — to bring justice to Turkey,” he said.
Turkish stock market fell significantly on Monday morning following the results.
According to unofficial tally announced Monday, Erdogan’s Nation’s Alliance won control of the parliament by securing 322 seats of the 600-seat chamber. The CHP-led People’s Alliance, in turn, won 213 seats and the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party-led leftist alliance won 65 seats.
The runoff gives the opposition its best chance to unseat Erdogan, the longest-serving president in Turkey’s modern history. Inflation, the economy and refugees were the top issues concerning voters following the devastating earthquakes that hit Turkey in February.
The 2023 elections are seen as the most consequential in Turkey’s modern history domestically and in the international arena. Erdogan, seen as an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has veered Ankara’s foreign policy away from its NATO allies including the United States.
Kilicdaroglu engaged in a spat with Russia on the eve of the vote, accusing the Kremlin of meddling in the elections by fabricating videos and conspiracies against an opposition candidate. Moscow shot back calling the opposition’s source a “liar” as Erdogan came to Putin’s defense.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
