According to several media reports, incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is just ahead of his challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, chairman of the Republican People’s Party CHP, in the presidential elections in Turkey.
The figures reported by Turkish news agencies and TV stations vary greatly, depending on whether the media is pro-government or pro-opposition.
After the pro-opposition media had long predicted a head-to-head race with slight advantages for Kılıçdaroğlu, it is now becoming apparent that Erdoğan could still have a narrow lead. According to the Anka news agency, he is ahead with 51.5 percent; Kılıçdaroğlu comes to 48.5 percent. The state news agency Anadolu sees Erdoğan even six percentage points ahead of Kılıçdaroğlu, here the status is almost 53 to a good 47 percent.
In the meantime, the supreme electoral authority has also commented. According to her, Erdoğan can collect 54.5 percent of the votes, while Kilıçdaroğlu only gets 45.5 percent.
According to the Turkish media, around 90 percent of the ballot boxes have now been opened. However, this does not necessarily correspond to 90 percent of the votes. In addition, the highest electoral authority only recorded a count of 54.6 percent. The situation is therefore too uncertain overall to be able to say who won the election.
Erdoğan entered the voting as the favorite after narrowly missing out on an absolute majority in the first round two weeks ago. Kılıçdaroğlu stood for an alliance of six parties. In the final spurt of the election campaign, he made conspicuously populist statements, presumably to attract voters on the right-wing fringe who voted for the nationalist Sinan Oğan in the first ballot. Two weeks ago, Erdoğan got 49.5 percent of the votes, Kilıçdaroğlu 44.9 percent.
The election campaign was considered unfair because the incumbent was given far more space in the largely state-controlled media to get his message across to the people. The opposition also complained of irregularities, such as the opposition election workers and observers being attacked and prevented from doing their work in several places.
Erdoğan has dominated Turkish politics for 20 years. Since he pushed through the introduction of a presidential system in 2018, has more power than ever. Critics fear that the country with its approximately 85 million inhabitants could slide completely into autocracy if he wins again. Kılıçdaroğlu has promised to democratize the country.
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