Turkey awaits presidential election results as Erdogan’s leadership hangs in balance

Sunday marked the end of voting in Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 20 years in office hung in the balance following a fierce campaign from an opposition candidate. Turkey, a NATO member, has been dealing with economic crisis and the weakening of democratic checks and balances.

The election could give Erdogan, 69, a second five-year term in office or result in his removal in favor of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of a resurgent opposition who has pledged to put Turkey back on a more democratic course. A run-off election will be held on May 28 to decide the winner if no contender receives more than 50% of the vote.

Additionally, lawmakers were chosen to serve in Turkey’s 600-seat parliament, which Erdogan’s executive presidency greatly reduced. If Erdogan’s political alliance triumphs, he might be able to exercise his power virtually unchecked. If it prevails in both the presidential and parliamentary elections, the opposition has pledged to convert Turkey’s political system back to a parliamentary democracy.

According to opinion polls, the increasingly authoritarian candidate for president entered the election trailing a rival for the first time. Since 2003, Erdogan has been the prime minister or president of Turkey.

Kilicdaroglu, 74, the co-candidate of a six-party opposition coalition and the leader of the center-left, pro-secular Republican People’s Party, or CHP, had a modest advantage in pre-election polls.

Polls were open to the public from 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) through 5 p.m. (1400 GMT). According to Turkish election tradition, media outlets are prohibited from publishing any incomplete results until the embargo is lifted at 9:00 p.m. (1800 GMT). Exit polls are not available.

In the elections, which took place in the year the nation will celebrate the centenary of its founding as a republic, more than 64 million individuals, including 3.4 million abroad voters, were eligible to cast a ballot. Turkey consistently has high voter turnout, which reflects citizens’ enduring faith in democratic elections.

Erdogan has nonetheless seen the repression of free speech and assembly, and Turkey is also experiencing a severe cost of living problem, which critics attribute to the government’s poor handling of the economy.

Turkey is also still feeling the consequences of a devastating earthquake that struck 11 southern provinces in February and left more than 50,000 people dead in unstable structures. Erdogan’s administration has come under fire for its slow and ineffective response to the disaster, as well as for the lax enforcement of building regulations that increased the number of fatalities and suffering.

The elections were widely monitored internationally as a test of a united opposition’s capacity to unseat a leader who has virtually all state power consolidated in his hands.

Erdogan has run a contentious election campaign, courting voters with the help of the government and his control of the media. He has branded the opposition as “drunkards,” “collaborators with terrorists,” and supporters of LGBTQ+ rights, all of which he thinks are a danger to traditional family values.

He has raised wages and pensions, subsidized electricity and gas bills, and promoted domestic Turkish defense and infrastructure projects in an effort to win support from the country’s hard-hit populace due to inflation.

He also added a small leftist party and two minor Islamist parties to the political alliance his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, had with two nationalist groups.

On Sunday, May 14, 2023, in earthquake-stricken Malatya, Turkey, people queue outside voting containers. Turkey’s historic legislative and presidential elections, which take place on Sunday, are likely to be fiercely contested and may present President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with his greatest challenge to date in his 20 years in office. via AP, IHA
In Turkey’s earthquake-struck Malatya, voters line up in front of voting containers.
A 2017 referendum that narrowly approved an executive presidential system resulted in Kilicdaroglu’s six-party Nation Alliance making a promise to abolish it. The opposition coalition also pledged to undo Erdogan’s suppression of free speech and other democratic advancements, as well as to reinstate the independence of the judiciary and the central bank.

A minor Islamist party, the nationalist Good Party, which is led by the former interior minister Meral Aksener, and two AKP splinter groups—one led by the former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and the other by the former finance minister Ali Babacan—are also members of the alliance.

Kilicdaroglu is being supported in the presidential contest by the primary Kurdish political party in the nation, which is currently Turkey’s second-largest opposition force. Recent years have seen arrests and legal action against the party’s leaders by Erdogan’s administration.

On a sunny spring day throughout much of the nation, people were seen making enormous queues outside of classrooms and walking to schools that were serving as polling places. Ankara officials predicted an even bigger participation than in recent years.

The long waits were partially caused by difficulties many voters had folding large ballot papers—which contained 24 political parties vying for seats in parliament—and fitting them into envelopes with the presidential ballot.

It is crucial for Turkey. It’s crucial for the populace, according to Ankara voter Necati Aktuna. “For the past 60 years, I have cast ballots. This election is the most significant one I can recall seeing.

In front of the voting places where Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu cast their ballots, sizable crowds gathered.

“Democracy has been sorely missed by all of us. After casting his ballot at a school in Ankara, where his fans screamed “President Kilicdaroglu!” Kilicdaroglu added, “We all missed being together.

You will witness that spring will arrive in this nation starting right now, he promised.

Erdogan claimed that voting was proceeding “without any problems,” including in the area hit by the earthquake, where people were casting their ballots “with great enthusiasm and love.”

He expressed his optimism that after the results of the evening’s count, “our nation, our country, and Turkish democracy will have a better future.”

Sinan Ogan, a former academic who is supported by an anti-immigrant nationalist party, is another candidate for president. Following a sharp decline in his popularity, a second candidate, center-left politician Muharrem Ince, withdrew from the race on Thursday. The country’s election authority declared his withdrawal unlawful, and votes cast in support of him would still be counted.

If Erdogan loses, several people questioned if he would transfer control. Erdogan, though, asserted that he was elected through democracy and that he would conduct himself accordingly in an interview with more than a dozen Turkish channels on Friday.

After she cast her ballot, Aksener, the head of the Good Party, requested respect.

“Now we are moving to the stage where we all must respect the results that emerge from the ballot boxes where people have voted freely and (with) their conscience,” the speaker remarked.

Concerns have been raised about voting in the 11 earthquake-affected regions, where over 9 million people were eligible to vote.

Only 133,000 individuals have registered to vote in their new provinces after moving out of the earthquake zone, which is home to almost 3 million people. Bus transportation for voters was scheduled by political parties and non-governmental organizations, however it was unclear how many returned.

Many earthquake survivors cast their ballots in improvised polling places set up in school yards using containers.

Ramazan Akcay arrived early at his polling place in the earthquake-stricken city of Diyarbakir to cast his ballot.

It will be a democratic election, God willing, he said. “May it be good for our nation,” you say.