Turkish presidential election headed for run-off vote | CBC News

Turkey’s presidential election will be decided in a run-off, 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 Kiliçdaroğlu.

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.

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 centre 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 49.51 per cent, Kiliçdaroğlu grabbed 44.88 per cent and the third candidate, Sinan Ogan, received 5.17 per cent, according to Ahmet Yener, the head of the Supreme Electoral Board.

In the last presidential election in 2018, Erdogan secured 52.6 per cent of the vote in the first round, winning outright.

In power since 2003

Even as it became clear a run-off 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. 

Kiliçdaroğlu sounded hopeful for an eventual victory.

“We will absolutely win the second round … and bring democracy,” said Kiliçdaroğlu, 74, maintaining that Erdogan had lost the trust of a nation now demanding change. Kiliçdaroğlu 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 Kiliçdaroğlu-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 run-off because voters would not want a “divided government.”

As in previous years, Erdogan led a highly divisive campaign. He portrayed Kiliçdaroğlu, 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 defence industry and infrastructure projects.

Kiliçdaroğlu, 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 Kiliçdaroğlu’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.