The president of TürkiyeRecep Tayyip Erdogan, leads his rival with 25% of the votes counted after the elections this Sunday, although the results can still change, state media reported.
With 25.7% of the votes counted, Erdogan, in power for 20 years, obtained 54.3% of the votes. His rival, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, received 39.8% of the voteaccording to the state agency Anadolu.
If neither achieves an absolute majority, a second round will be held in two weeks. The progress of the count is very different depending on the region, and in large cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, where the opposition has more support, it is a little slower than in the country as a whole. Results can still vary considerably.
Regarding the parliamentary elections, which are also held on May 14, the government alliance led by Erdogan’s AKP would have won with 61%. Although, in this case, the ballot box count only reaches 10%.
Why are elections in Türkiye important?
In these historic elections, a coalition of six opposition parties from very different political traditions came together to present a single candidate, Kemal Klçdarolu. In addition, although the pro-Kurdish formation Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) – the third force in Parliament – did not join the opposition coalition, it did not present a candidate for the presidency and asked for the vote for Klçdarolu, who has been leading the CHP for 13 years ( Republican People’s Party), the main opposition party and the formation created by the founder of the homeland, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
On this occasion, Erdogan comes to the vote in a country hit by an economic crisis, with a currency devalued by half in two years and inflation that exceeded 85% in autumn.
The earthquake on February 6, which collapsed tens of thousands of buildings and caused the death of at least 50,000 people and displaced more than 3 million, called into question the omnipotence of a mega-president who centralizes all powers.
Precisely Erdogan has singled out as one of his great achievements the modernization of Turkey through construction, on which he based his success during his first decade in power, since he was prime minister.
However, the earthquake evidenced the corruption of contractors and authorities, who granted construction permits that did not comply with anti-seismic regulations.
His rival, Kilicdaroglu, is committed to appeasement and promises to restore the rule of law and respect the institutions, affected in the last ten years by what his adversaries describe as Erdogan’s autocratic drift.
According the surveys, his short, calm speeches, in contrast to Erdogan’s, won over the majority of the 5.2 million young Turks voting for the first time.
Turkey, a NATO member country, enjoys a privileged position between Europe and the Middle East and is an important diplomatic actor.
Erdogan accuses the opposition of being close to “terrorists”, of being “drunken” and of standing up for LGBTQ rights, which he says are a threat to traditional family values.
In a bid to appeal to inflation-stricken voters, he increased salaries and pensions and subsidized electricity and gas bills, while showcasing Turkey’s homegrown defense industry and infrastructure projects.
The president expanded the political alliance of his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, with two nationalist parties to include a small left-wing party and two fringe Islamist parties.
Kilicdaroglu’s six-party National Alliance vows to dismantle the narrowly voted presidential form of government in a 2017 referendum and return the country to a parliamentary form of government.
The alliance says it will restore the independence of the judiciary and the central bank, institute checks and balances and reverse the democratic rollback and the crackdown on free speech and dissent under Erdogan.
Source: Ambito
