Turkey hangs in the balance after 20 years of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in power . The outgoing Turkish president will have to go to the ballot in two weeks, on May 28th.
He had to admit it last night, acknowledging the first results of the presidential elections: "I'm clearly in the lead", he said, but a second round will be needed, the outcome of which he will "respect".
It is the first time in two decades that the head of state has been forced into a runoff, scheduled for May 28 against his Social Democrat opponent Kemal Kiliçdaroglu .
The latter led an unprecedented coalition of six opposition parties. “Regardless of the result, 27 million people preferred to vote for us – continued Erdogan as the vote counting operations continue -. I think we will end this election with more than 50% of the votes. The people have chosen stability and security in these presidential elections."
The outgoing president also claimed the "majority" of the 600 seats in Parliament for the National Alliance he formed between his AK party and small nationalist and Islamist parties. As for the opposition candidate: «If our nation asks for a second round, we will gladly accept it. And we will absolutely win it,” Kiliçdaroglu said in the middle of the night in Ankara, surrounded by representatives of his six coalition parties.
Erdogan "failed to get the result he expected despite all the insults" pronounced against his opponent, he continued. “The need for change in society is over 50%. We absolutely must win and establish democracy in this country."
RECORD TURNOUT – According to data, Turks went en masse to vote with a turnout that was close to 90% of those entitled . For the Supreme Electoral Council of Ankara, the voting operations were carried out without irregularities. Very long lines were seen at the polling stations in all the cities, between Erdogan's supporters convinced of renewing their trust in the Sultan and opponents for whom today's vote represented "a matter of life and death". According to them, a confirmation from Erdogan would forever put an end to the independence of the judiciary, deal a lethal blow to human rights and bring Turkey to the brink of the abyss from an economic point of view.
After going to the polls, where he presented himself with his wife Emine distributing cash to children , the Turkish president left for Ankara to follow the count.
“Everyone has lacked democracy. We missed being together, we missed hugging each other. You will see, spring will return to this country if God wills and it will last forever», were instead the words of Kilicdaroglu who voted in the capital, where on Saturday he went to pay homage to the mausoleum of the father of the secular Republic of Turkey Mustafa Kemal Ataturk for closing the electoral campaign while Erdogan was instead resumed praying in Hagia Sophia, which in 2021 he decided to convert into a mosque, as happened at the time of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.
(Unioneonline/D)
