Turkey election: Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu have to run off – this is how Erdogan reacts

The presidential elections in Turkey are entering a second round. In the vote on Sunday, incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan received the most votes, but fell short of the absolute majority required for an election. Erdogan will be the favorite in the runoff on May 28th. The opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu is not yet defeated.

It’s a new experience for Recep Tayyip Erdogan. For almost 30 years, when he began his political career by running for mayor in Istanbul started, he won a dozen elections on the first try. He became head of government in 2003 and has been president since 2014. Most recently, the Turks confirmed him as head of state in 2018 with 52.6 percent.

Runoff election in Turkey: Erdogan is humble

But this time it wasn’t enough. The 69 year old head of state must face a runoff. In the first round on Sunday, Erdogan just missed the required absolute majority with 49.42 percent – according to the status on Monday after the counting of 99.4 percent of the ballot boxes. The president, spoiled by success, is humble: “If my nation has decided on a second round, that is also welcome,” Erdogan called out to the assembled supporters early Monday morning from the balcony of his party headquarters in Ankara. “I believe with all my heart that we will continue to serve our nation in the next five years,” said Erdogan to the cheers of the audience.

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Kemal Kilicdaroglu also accepted Sunday’s vote: “If the nation says ‘second round’, we respect that.” As the joint candidate of six opposition parties, Kilicdaroglu got 44.95 percent. It was the best result ever against an opposition candidate Erdogan scored But not enough to win. Kilicdaroglu is nevertheless confident: “We will absolutely win the second round.”

The 74-year-old had already promised that before the first round. Some pollsters encouraged him in this belief. In some polls, Kilicdaroglu was well ahead of Erdogan with just over 50 percent. On Sunday evening, when Erdogan was clearly leading the vote count, Kilicdaroglu tweeted: “We’re ahead!” But things turned out differently. Erdogan got 2.4 million more votes than Kilicdaroglu on Sunday – a lead that will be difficult for the opposition candidate to catch up.

Türkiye: Again and again high voter turnout

The turnout is in Turkey traditionally very high. In the 2018 election, it was 86.2 percent. This time, according to the electoral authority even 89 percent. But there were some irregularities. Opposition politicians accused the electoral authorities and the state media of “manipulation”. The votes in the Erdogan strongholds are said to have been counted first.

At the same time they are counts in constituencies, in which Kilicdaroglu was ahead, opposition politicians complained. This led to the state news agency Anadolu and state television TRT initially reporting around 60 percent of the votes for Erdogan.

In the course of the counting, however, this lead melted away and in the late evening fell below the 50 percent hurdle that Erdogan would have had to clear in the first round for re-election. There were also isolated reports of irregularities at the polling stations. Systematic election fraud on a larger scale, like some government critic feared, but apparently did not exist.

Election campaign in Turkey: coalition partners threatened government critics

However, there can be no talk of a fair election campaign. Entrepreneurs close to Erdogan control 90 percent of the Turkish press and mass media. The state television TRT broadcast rallies and interviews with Erdogan for 32 hours in April alone. TRT dedicated 32 minutes of airtime to opposition candidate Kilicdaroglu. The government camp polarized in the election campaign: Erdogan called opposition politicians “drunkards” and “terrorists”. His ultra-nationalist coalition partner Devlet Bahceli threatened government critics that they could face “life imprisonment or bullets in their bodies” after the election.

This is a preview of what Turkey is likely to see in the next two weeks. Before the runoff Erdogan will pull out all the stops again, attack his opponent and hand out more election gifts. In the past few weeks, Erdogan had promised public sector workers massive wage increases. Whether he can then also finance his commitments in view of the desolate economic situation is another matter.

Erdogan not only goes into the runoff with a lead of 2.4 million votes as the favorite. It will also help him that his People’s Alliance was able to defend the absolute majority of seats in the new parliament, which was also elected on Sunday. The electoral alliance is led by Erdogan Islamic conservative AKP the neo-fascist MHP and other ultra-right and Islamist splinter groups.

Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu: Competitor Sinan Ogan could tip the scales

According to the counting results available on Monday, Allianz received 49.37 percent of the votes. According to calculations by the TV broadcaster CNN-Turk, that’s enough for 321 of the 600 seats in parliament. Erdogan called on voters to opt for “security and stability” in the runoff – an allusion to the fact that if Kilicdaroglu were elected, that would change Parliament and the President could block each other.

Meanwhile, all eyes in Turkey are on Sinan Ogan, who came third in Sunday’s election. With 5.2 percent, the candidate from the ultra-nationalist Ata Alliance fared significantly better than the pollsters had predicted. Its 2.8 million voters could make the difference in the runoff election on the Sunday after next. So far he has not made any recommendation for either candidate. Ogan wants to consult with his fellow party members first. He now sees himself in the role of kingmaker: “Our people can rest easy,” he said on Monday night in Ankara. “We will never allow Turkey to fall into a crisis.”

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