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ANKARA, Türkiye (AP) — Turkish Presidential Election Electoral officials will decide in a runoff on Monday as incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan edged out key challengers but fell short of a complete victory that would extend his increasingly authoritarian rule to 30 years. announced.
A second vote on May 28 will see whether the strategically located NATO nation remains under the firm control of the president or embarks on the more democratic line promised by its main rival Kemal Kirikdaroglu. It is decided whether you can do it..
Erdogan ruled for 20 years,Polls suggested the campaign may be coming to an end and criticism of the government’s response to the cost of living crisis and February’s devastating earthquake. The electoral map may be repainted.
Rather, Erdogan’s withdrawal was still less pronounced than expected. And with Erdogan’s alliance maintaining control in parliament, Erdogan is now well positioned to win the second round.
Uncertainty forced Turkey’s main stock exchange BIST-100 to drop more than 6% at the start of trading on Monday, suspending trading. But shares recovered somewhat after trading resumed, with the index down 2.5% in the afternoon from Friday’s market close.
Western countries and foreign investors are particularly interested in the outcome because of President Erdogan’s unconventional economic leadership and often fickle but successful efforts to put Turkey at the center of many major diplomatic negotiations. rice field. At the crossroads of East and West on the Black Sea and bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria, Turkey has played a key role in issues such as the Syrian war, migration flows to Europe and Ukrainian grain exports.and the expansion of NATO.
Erdogan won 49.51%, Kirikdaroglu 44.88% and third candidate Sinan Ogan 5.17%, according to Ahmet Jena, chairman of the Supreme Electoral Commission.
In the last presidential election in 2018, Mr. Erdogan swept the first round with 52.6% of the vote.
Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey as either prime minister or president since 2003, painted Sunday’s vote as a victory for both himself and his country, despite the possibility of a run-off election.
“Even if the election results are not final, it does not change the fact that the people elected us,” Erdogan, 69, told his supporters early Monday morning.
He said he would respect the country’s decision.
Mr. Kilicdaroglu seemed hopeful for an eventual victory.
“We will absolutely win the second round and bring democracy,” said 74-year-old Kirikdaroglu, who argued that Erdogan had lost the public’s trust in his desire for change. Kirikdaroglu and his party, which have lost all previous presidential and parliamentary elections since he became leader in 2010, have gained more votes this time.
Right-wing candidate Ogan has not said who he would support if the election went to the second round. He is believed to have the support of nationalist electors who want change after 20 years under Erdogan, but is unconvinced by the ability of the six-party coalition led by Kirikda Rogul to govern.
Election results showed the coalition led by President Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party is likely to retain a majority in the 600-seat parliament, but narrowly passed a referendum giving the president additional legislative powers. Congress has since lost much of its power. in 2017.
Erdogan’s AKP and its allies secured 321 seats in the parliament, while the opposition won 213 seats and the remaining 66 seats went to the pro-Kurdish coalition, according to preliminary results.
Howard Eisenstaedt, an associate professor of Middle Eastern history and politics at New York’s St. Lawrence University, said voters don’t want a “divided government”, so these results would favor Erdogan in the final runoff. said it was likely.
As in previous years, President Erdogan led a highly divisive campaign. He portrayed Mr. Kilicdaroglu, who was backed by the country’s pro-Kurdish political parties, as colluding with “terrorists” and supporting what he called “deviant” LGBTQ rights. To convince inflation-hit voters, he increased wages and pensions, subsidized electricity and gas bills, and showcased Turkey’s homegrown defense industry and infrastructure projects.
Kirikdaroglu campaigned on promises to reverse the crackdown on free speech and other forms of democratic setbacks and repair an economy hit by high inflation and currency devaluation.
But as the results came in, those factors didn’t seem to sway voters as much as they hoped. The conservative heartland of Turkey overwhelmingly voted for the ruling party, with Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s main opposition winning victories in most of the western and southern coastal provinces. The pro-Kurdish green leftist YSP has won the Kurdish-majority southeastern provinces.
Erdogan’s party dominated the quake-hit areas, winning 10 of the 11 provinces that traditionally supported the president, according to results reported by the state Anadolu Agency. This was despite criticism that the government was slow to respond to the 7.8-magnitude quake that killed more than 50,000 people.
More than 64 million people, including overseas voters, were eligible to vote, with nearly 89% of them voting. This year marks her 100th anniversary of the founding of Turkey as a republic, a modern, secular nation that arose on the remains of the Ottoman Empire.
Turkey’s voter turnout has traditionally been high despite years of government suppression of freedom of expression and assembly, especially since the 2016 coup attempt. Erdoğan has blamed followers of former cleric Fethullah Gulen for the coup attempt and has launched a major crackdown on officials and pro-Kurdish politicians suspected of having ties to Gulen. .
Critics say the president’s heavy-handed style is responsible for the painful cost of living crisis. Inflation fell to about 44% from a high of about 86%, according to the latest official data. The price of vegetables has become an issue in the opposition campaign, which used the onion as a symbol.
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