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ANKARA, Turkey (AP) Turkey's presidential election will be decided in a runoff, election officials said Monday, after incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan pulled ahead of his chief challenger, but fell short of an outright victory that would extend his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade.

The May 28 second-round vote will determine whether the strategically located NATO country remains under the president's firm grip or can embark on a more democratic course promised by his main rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

READ MORE: Runoff in Turkey's election appears more likely after dip in voter support for Erdogan

While Erdogan has governed for 20 years, opinion polls had suggested that run could be coming to an end and that a cost-of-living crisis and criticism over the government's response to a devastating February earthquake might redraw the electoral map.

Instead, Erdogan's retreat was still less marked than predicted and with his alliance retaining its hold on the parliament, he is now in a good position to win in the second round.

The uncertainty drove the main Turkish stock exchange BIST-100 more than 6% lower at the open Monday, prompting a temporary halt in trading. But shares recovered after trading resumed, and the index was 2.5% lower in the afternoon compared to the market close Friday.

Western nations and foreign investors were particularly interested in the outcome because of Erdogan's unorthodox leadership of the economy and often mercurial but successful efforts to put Turkey at the center of many major diplomatic negotiations. At a crossroads between East and West, with a coast along the Black Sea and borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria, Turkey has been a key player on issues including the war in Syria, migration flows to Europe, exports of Ukraine's grain, and NATO's expansion.

Preliminary results showed Erdogan won 49.5% of the vote, while Kilicdaroglu grabbed 44.9%, and the third candidate, Sinan Ogan, received 5.2%, according to Ahmet Yener, the head of Supreme Electoral Board.

The remaining uncounted votes were not enough to tip Erdogan into outright victory, even if they all broke for him, Yener said. In the last presidential election in 2018, Erdogan won in the first round, with more than 52% of the vote.

Even as it became clear a runoff was likely, Erdogan, who has governed Turkey as either prime minister or president since 2003, painted Sunday's vote as a victory both for himself and the country.

"That the election results have not been finalized doesn't change the fact that the nation has chosen us," Erdogan, 69, told supporters in the early hours of Monday.

He said he would respect the nation's decision.

Kilicdaroglu sounded hopeful, tweeting around the time the runoff was announced: "Don't lose hope. We will get up and win this election together."

Kilicdaroglu, 74, and his party have lost all previous presidential and parliamentary elections since he took leadership in 2010 but increased their votes this time.

Right-wing candidate Ogan has not said whom he would endorse if the elections go to a second round. He is believed to have received support from nationalist electors wanting change after two decades under Erdogan but unconvinced by the Kilicdaroglu-led six party alliance's ability to govern.

The election results showed that the alliance led by Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party looked like it would keep its majority in the 600-seat parliament, although the assembly has lost much of its power after a referendum that gave the presidency additional legislative powers narrowly passed in 2017.

Erdogan's AKP and its allies secured 321 seats in the National Assembly, while the opposition won 213 and the 66 remaining went to a pro-Kurdish alliance, according to preliminary results.

Howard Eissenstat, an associate professor of Middle East history and politics at St. Lawrence University in New York, said those results would likely give Erdogan an advantage in an eventual runoff because voters would not want a "divided government."

As in previous years, Erdogan led a highly divisive campaign. He portrayed Kilicdaroglu, who had received the backing of the country's pro-Kurdish party, of colluding with "terrorists" and of supporting what he called "deviant" LGBTQ rights. In a bid to woo voters hit hard by inflation, he increased wages and pensions and subsidized electricity and gas bills, while showcasing Turkey's homegrown defense industry and infrastructure projects.

Kilicdaroglu, for his part, campaigned on promises to reverse crackdowns on free speech and other forms of democratic backsliding, as well as to repair an economy battered by high inflation and currency devaluation.

But as the results came in, it appeared those elements didn't shake up the electorate as expected: Turkey's conservative heartland overwhelmingly voted for the ruling party, with Kilicdaroglu's main opposition winning most of the coastal provinces in the west and south. The pro-Kurdish Green Left Party, YSP, won the predominantly Kurdish provinces in the southeast.

Results reported by the state-run Anadolu Agency showed Erdogan's party dominating in the earthquake-hit region, winning 10 out of 11 provinces in an area that has traditionally supported the president. That was despite criticism of a slow response by his government to the 7.8-magnitude earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people.

Nearly 89% of eligible voters in Turkey cast a ballot and over half of overseas voters went to the ballot box. Voter turnout in Turkey is traditionally strong, despite the government suppressing freedom of expression and assembly over the years and especially since a 2016 coup attempt.

Erdogan blamed the failed coup on followers of a former ally, cleric Fethullah Gulen, and initiated a large-scale crackdown on civil servants with alleged links to Gulen and on pro-Kurdish politicians.

Critics maintain the president's heavy-handed style is responsible for a painful cost-of-living crisis. The latest official statistics put inflation at about 44%, down from a high of around 86%. The price of vegetables became a campaign issue for the opposition, which used an onion as a symbol.

Bilginsoy reported from Istanbul. Associated Press writer Cinar Kiper contributed from Bodrum, Turkey.

Read more:
Turkey presidential election heads to runoff as incumbent Erdogan surges - PBS NewsHour

Secular leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu gave the opposition's best performance of Erdogan's dominant era in May 14 parliament and presidential polls.

The retired bureaucrat of Kurdish Alevi descent broke ethnic barriers and Erdogan's stranglehold on the media and state institutions to win almost 45 percent of the vote.

But Erdogan still came within a fraction of a point of topping the 50-percent threshold needed to win in the first round.

The 69-year-old leader did it despite Turkey's worst economic crisis since the 1990s and opinion surveys showing him headed for his first national election defeat.

Kilicdaroglu will now need to rally his deflated troops and beat the odds yet again to wrest back power for the secular party that ruled Turkey for most of the 20th century.

The Eurasia Group consultancy put Erdogan's chances of winning next Sunday at 80 percent.

"It will be an uphill struggle for Kilicdaroglu in the second round," Hamish Kinnear of the Verisk Maplecroft consulting firm agreed.

Erdogan rode a nationalist wave that saw smaller right-wing parties pick up nearly 25 percent of the parallel parliamentary vote.

Kilicdaroglu is courting these voters in the second presidential round.

The 74-year-old revamped his campaign team and tore up his old playbook for the most fateful week of his political career.

He has replaced chatty clips that he used to record from his kitchen with desk-thumping speeches and pledges to immediately rid Turkey of millions of migrants.

"As soon as I come to power, I will send all the refugees home," he said in his first post-election address.

He has chased the endorsement of a little-known ultra-nationalist, whose tiny vote share pushed Turkey into its first presidential runoff.

And he has punched back against Erdogan's claims that he was associating with "terrorists" -- a code word for Kurdish groups fighting for broader autonomy in Turkey's southeast.

"We have millions of patriots to reach," Kilicdaroglu said.

But Kilicdaroglu's sharp right turn could prove costly with voters from Kurdish regions that overwhelmingly backed him in the first round.

Kurds embraced Erdogan during his first decade in power because he worked to lift many of their social restrictions.

They turned against him when Erdogan formed his own alliance with Turkey's nationalist forces and began to unleash purges after surviving a failed coup attempt in 2016.

Kilicdaroglu's new and more overtly nationalist tone echoes a secular era during which Kurds -- who make up nearly a fifth of Turkey's population -- were stripped of basic rights.

The political battles are being accompanied by market turmoil that set in once it became apparent that Erdogan was on course to keep his grip on power.

Turkey's recent years have been roiled by economic upheaval that erased many of the gains of Erdogan's more prosperous early rule.

Most of the problems stem from Erdogan's fervent fight against interest rates -- an approach some analysts link to his adherence to Islamic rules against usury.

"I have a thesis that interest rates and inflation are positively correlated," he told CNN this week.

"The lower the interest rates, the lower inflation will be."

The markets' trust in more conventional economics have put massive pressure on the lira.

Government data showed Turkey's foreign currency reserves -- topped up by aid from Arab allies -- dropping by $9 billion and reaching their lowest levels in 21 years in the week running up to the first-round vote.

Analysts think most of the money was spent on efforts to prop up the lira against sharp and politically sensitive falls.

"There is now a very real risk that an Erdogan victory could lead to macroeconomic instability in Turkey, including the threat of a severe currency crisis," Capital Economic warned.

- 'Special relationship with Putin' -

But Erdogan has exuded confidence since the first round.

He has ridiculed his rival's nationalist overtures and stuck by some of his more controversial policies -- including an increasingly strong relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Erdogan's turn towards Russia has helped secure billions of dollars of relief on Turkey's huge energy bill.

"Russia and Turkey need each other in every field possible," Erdogan told CNN.

He also argued that his more "balanced" stance towards Putin helped him negotiate a UN-backed deal with Russia under which Ukraine was allowed to resume exporting grain.

"This was possible because of our special relationship with President Putin," Erdogan said.

He also scoffed at remarks from 2019 by US President Joe Biden -- recalled by Erdogan's allies throughout the campaign -- calling Erdogan an "autocrat".

"Would a dictator ever enter a runoff election?" Erdogan asked.

Read more from the original source:
Erdogan eyes third decade of rule in historic runoff - FRANCE 24 English

Politicians who do not have vision, ideals and cleargoals cannot outline development horizons and become a source ofhope for the people, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said,Azernews reports citing Trend.

He made the remark in the publication in connectionwith the second round of voting in the presidential electionsscheduled for May 28.

Erdogan urged his fellow citizens, including theyounger generation of voters, not to believe in negative scenariosthat a number of politicians are trying to manipulate before thevoting day.

"We have ruled in Trkiye for 21 years. Most of us areyour peers. For all these years, the authorities have neverinterfered and did not allow interference in the lifestyle of youngpeople. We have always listened to the opinion of the youngergeneration and supported it," he said.

The Turkish president also drew attention to theopportunities open to the Trkiye's youth.

"The number of universities in Trkiye has reached208. There are 96 technoparks, 316 design and 1,249 researchcenters in the country. More than a million young citizens canexpress themselves at the TEKNOFEST festival venues. Modern Trkiyehas all the opportunities for international competition. Thanks tothe National Technological Initiative, our country has moved out ofthe category of consumers and has become one of the states thatcreate, develop and produce. All this is done for you. We willbuild Trkiye of the future together," Erdogan said.

He expressed confidence that the date of May 28 willbe the starting point for the implementation of the "Centenary ofTrkiye" concept, in which young people will become activeparticipants.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

View post:
Modern Trkiye has all opportunities for international competition ... - AzerNews.Az

Campaign posters of the 13th Presidential candidate and Republican People's Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kilidaroglu (L) and the President of the Republic of Turkey and Justice Development Party (AKP) President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) are seen displayed.

Tunahan Turhan | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

The result of the first round of Turkey's presidential election was a blow to the opposition, who had high hopes of unseating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 20 years in power.

Contender Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a soft-spoken, bookish 74-year-old,is running as the candidate for change, vowing economic reform, a reversal of Erdogan's policies that many describe as autocratic, and closer ties with NATO and the West.

Turkish opinion polls released before Sunday's vote indicated a clear lead for Kilicdaroglu. But by Monday, after nearly all votes were counted, 69-year-old Erdogan finished solidly ahead with 49.5% of the vote; Kilicdaroglu had 44.9%. Since neither candidate won more than 50% of the vote, however, the election will go to a runoff on May 28.

Turkey is a country of around 85 million people, sitting at the geographical crossroads of East and West. It boasts NATO's second-largest military, is home to 4 million refugees and plays a pivotal role in geopolitics with its mediation in the Russia-Ukraine war.

The election results show that it's more divided than ever.

They also reveal that despite Turkey's current economic turmoil, tens of millions of Turks still see Erdogan as their only viable leader.

Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate at the AK Party headquarters garden on May 15, 2023 in Ankara, Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced his biggest electoral test as the country voted in the general election.

Burak Kara | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Turkey is facing a cost-of-living crisis, with inflation around 50% and its national currency, the lira, down more than 75% against the dollar in the last five years in large part thanks to Erdogan's steady lowering of interest rates despite soaring inflation and shrinking foreign exchange reserves.

Erdogan served as Turkey's prime minister from 2003 to 2014 and president from 2014 onward, after coming to prominence as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s. He was celebrated in the first decade of the new millennium for transforming Turkey into an emerging market economic powerhouse.

Presiding over numerous national accomplishments for the country, he has championed nationalist pride, security, respect for the Islamic faith, and frequently pushed back against the West, winning the loyal support of many Turks as well as non-Turkish people around the Muslim world.

Going head-to-head with Erdogan, Kilicdaroglu pledged a return to core democratic values and economic orthodoxy after his rival's heavy influence over the Turkish central bank sent foreign investors running.

He and his supporters accuse Erdogan of pulling the country toward authoritarianism, as Erdogan's reforms over the years concentrated his presidential power, and his government oversaw heavy crackdowns on protest movements and the forced closure of many independent media outlets.

Despite all this, Kilicdaroglu, and the alliance of six parties he represents, fell short. People are pointing to a variety of reasons: his shortcomings as a candidate, the inaccuracy of pollsters, Erdogan's government blocking more viable opposition, and the enduring popularity of Erdogan himself.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the 74-year-old leader of the center-left, pro-secular Republican People's Party, or CHP, delivers a press conference in Ankara on May 15, 2023.

Bulent Kilic | Afp | Getty Images

Kilicdaroglu is a "subpar candidate," Mike Harris, founder of advisory firm Cribstone Strategic Macro, told CNBC on Monday, "but he still should have been able to win this thing, considering how big Erdogan's negatives are, and what a disaster things are for the economy."

Harris said that once Kilicdaroglu was selected as a candidate, and "that mistake was made, these are the cards we have to deal with. And it looks like the result is it's going to be a close one."

Kilicdaroglu's party, the CHP, strives for the fiercely secular model of leadership first established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern Turkish state. It's known for being historically more hostile to practicing Muslims, who form an enormous part of the Turkish electorate, although the CHP under Kilicdaroglu has softened its stance and was even joined by former Islamist party members.

People who criticize the opposition's choice of candidate point to the fact that the CHP has repeatedly lost elections to Erdogan's powerful conservative and religious AK Party since Kilicdaroglu became its leader in 2010. The CHP's six-party platform is also an alliance of dramatically diverse parties, prompting concerns over its risk of fracturing once in power.

A representative for Kemal Kilicdaroglu's campaign wasn't immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.

There was hope in recent years that the popular mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu, a CHP member and vocal critic of Erdogan, could be Turkey's next president. But in late 2022, Imamoglu was unexpectedly sentenced to nearly three years in prison and barred from politics for what a court described as insulting the judges of the country's Supreme Election Council.

Imamoglu and his supporters say the charges are political, directed by Erdogan and his party to sabotage Imamoglu's political ambitions, something the AK Party denies.

For many observers, the story is emblematic of Erdogan's apparently unshakeable grip on power.

In 2018, Selim Sazak, an advisor to one of Turkey's smaller opposition parties, wrote: "Taking on Erdogan was always an honorable but doomed effort. The opposition groups were up against insurmountable odds. Erdogan used every advantage of incumbency; he had all the state's resources at his disposal and the media was almost entirely under his control."

Many observers now see the opposition's chances as bleak.

"I don't think that the opposition is going to gain any ground on the 28th of May," Arda Tunca, a columnist at Turkish news site PolitikYol, told CNBC.

Erdogan's AK Party also won a majority in Turkey's parliamentary election Sunday, meaning "Erdogan has the advantage of convincing the electorate that if the opposition leader is the winner, he's going to be a lame-duck president because the parliament is formed by the incumbent government," Tunca said. "So the power is on the government side in the parliament."

Still, Kilicdaroglu's 44.9% of the vote is notable as the highest any opposition candidate ever received, said Orcun Selcuk, an assistant professor of political science at Luther College in Iowa, on Twitter. "The opposition clearly did not meet the expectations but it would be a misjudgment to say that opposition coordination failed. There are important gains but they are not sufficient."

Kilicdaroglu promised an overhaul of economic policies, something that many investors had hoped for.

That hope turned to worry after Sunday's result, however, with a 6% fall in the Borsa Istanbul's benchmark BIST index, a nearly 10% dip in banking stocks and the lira's biggest percentage drop against the dollar in six months.

"Unfortunately it looks like [what] up to 49% of Turks have voted for is an economic crisis. ... The next two weeks, we could see the currency collapse," Harris said.

The monetary tools Erdogan's administration has been using to give the economy a semblance of stability are unsustainable, economists warned, and after the election will have to stop likely leading to severe volatility.

"Erdogan's significant outperformance in round one represents one of the worst case scenarios for Turkish assets and the lira," said Brendan McKenna, an emerging markets economist at Wells Fargo.

He expects the lira, currently trading at 19.75 to the dollar, to have a "significant selloff" in the near future and forecasts it falling to 23 to the greenback by the end of June.

Beata Javorcik, chief economist at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, told CNBC that Erdogan had "prioritized growth over macroeconomic stability."

"There is a limit to how long you can pretend the basic laws of economics do not apply," she said. "So there will be some hard choices that the government in Turkey will have to make, regardless of who leads this government."

An unexpected kingmaker has also emerged in the form of Sinan Ogan, an ultra-nationalist third-party candidate who outperformed expectations with more than 5% of the vote. Who his voters support in the second round could determine the final result and they're unlikely to throw their support behind Kilicdaroglu.

Kilicdaroglu, meanwhile, has reshuffled his campaign team, reportedly firing some staff and stressing that the election's fate is not yet sealed. "I'm here till the end," he said in one video, slamming his hand on a table. But critics point out that he still has not spoken publicly to his supporters, and say he lacks a clear runoff strategy.

"Kilicdaroglu's non-appearance on Monday and the subdued mood from his camp have dealt a heavy blow to his base," Ragip Soylu, Turkey bureau chief for Middle East Eye, wrote on Tuesday.

Read the original here:
Erdogan's election lead leaves Turkey's opposition reeling and an economy on the brink - CNBC

Turkey's Supreme Election Board has announced the official results of Sunday's election, with Recep Tayyip Erdogan receiving 49.24% and his main challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu receiving 45.07%

May 19, 2023, 1:43 PM ET

2 min read

ISTANBUL -- Turkey's Supreme Election Board on Friday confirmed the results of the first round of Turkey's presidential election in which neither incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor his main challenger, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, receiving the majority support needed for an outright victory.

The electoral board announced that Erdogan secured 49.24% of the vote, with Kilicdaroglu getting 45.07% and a third candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, receiving 5.28%, necessitating a runoff election on May 28 between the top two contenders.

Ogan, a former academic who was backed by an anti-migrant party, might hold the key to victory in the runoff now that hes out of the race.

Speaking to Turkish media earlier this week, Ogan listed the conditions to earn his support. Among them are taking a tough stance against the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, as well as creating a timeline for sending back millions of refugees, including nearly 3.7 million Syrians.

The PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in southeast Turkey, is considered a terror organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

On Thursday, Kilicdaroglu shifted from his more inclusive, soft-toned rhetoric to appeal to nationalist voters, vowing to send back millions of refugees and rejecting any possibility of negotiating for peace with Kurdish militants.

Meanwhile, speaking to CNN International in an interview broadcast on Friday, Erdogan said he would not bend to Ogans demands: Im not a person who likes to negotiate in such a manner. It will be the people who are the kingmakers.

Yet on Friday a surprise meeting between Erdogan and Ogan took place at the formers Istanbul office. No statement was made following the nearly one-hour meeting.

Read more from the original source:
Turkey's electoral board confirms 1st round election results; Erdogan meets 3rd party candidate - ABC News