Turkish presidential election
State media see Erdogan in front – opposition speaks of manipulation
The candidates for the post of Vice-President, the Mayor of the City of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu and the Mayor of the City of Ankara Mansur Yavas
© Tolga Ildun / Imago Images
There is actually a ban of several hours in Turkey before the election results are announced. But the first figures have already leaked out – and a dispute has broken out.
A dispute has already broken out over partial results in the presidential and parliamentary elections in Turkey. Several hours after the polls closed, the state media saw incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the lead, while the opposition, with their top candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu, claimed the lead. According to preliminary figures from the state news agency Anadolu, Erdogan’s lead shrank over the course of the evening.
Anadolu reported around 51 percent of the vote for Erdogan, ahead of Kilicdaroglu with 43 percent. However, the figures only referred to just over 60 percent of the votes that were counted, most of which came from strongholds of the Islamic conservative government. According to the agency, Erdogan initially had 54.3 percent after 25.7 percent of the votes counted.
Whoever gets more than 50 percent of the votes in the first ballot becomes the new president. If none of the candidates manages this, the two first-place winners will compete against each other in a run-off election in two weeks.
Opposition criticizes first partial results
Ekrem Imamoglu, mayor of Istanbul and party friend of Kilicdaroglu, called on the CHP party headquarters to ignore the numbers from Anadolu. “We don’t believe Anadolu,” he said. The news agency has “lost any seriousness”. The figures from CHP election observers painted “a positive picture,” emphasized a party spokesman. The CHP will publish its numbers once a “significant number” of ballot boxes have been opened.
According to figures from the Anka news portal, which is close to the opposition, Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu were almost equal after partial counts – and both were below 50 percent. According to Anka and Anadolu, candidates from other parties received a total of around five percent of the vote.
Most polls had predicted Kilicdaroglu’s narrow lead in the presidential election, with some even suggesting he could win in the first round.
Kurdish organization speaks of election manipulation in Turkey
According to a Kurdish organization, there was “a lot of election manipulation on a smaller scale.” For example, it was reported in many places that ballot papers had already been stamped when they were distributed, said the Kurdish Center for Public Relations, Civaka Azad, based in Berlin on Sunday shortly after the polling stations in Turkey closed at 5 p.m. local time (4 p.m. CET). ).
Invalid notes were also distributed accordingly. In addition, according to Civaka Azad, several thousand people were prevented from voting because they were named as poll workers without their knowledge (…) or because they were not given a ballot paper because their names were allegedly not on the lists.
There have also been numerous violations of the 24-hour “propaganda ban” in force in Turkey – especially by the governing party AKP and its coalition partner MHP. For example, voters received SMS messages from candidates, and gifts or advertising were distributed in front of the polling stations.
The high presence of the military and police – especially in predominantly Kurdish provinces – was very noticeable and, according to election observers, contributed to severe intimidation of society, explained Civaka Azad.
Images and videos of minor violent clashes in polling stations, mostly from AKP supporters, were distributed on the Internet.
Observers report remarkably high voter turnout
In summary, the so-called “fate elections” have so far been much more peaceful than feared, it said. The mood is likely to remain tense in the coming hours. The German consulate in Istanbul warned of possible unrest after the polling stations closed in a non-public e-mail.
According to observers, the turnout was remarkably high, but the official number has not yet been released. In the last national election in 2018, the 69-year-old Erdogan won the first round with 52.5 percent of the votes, and the turnout was over 86 percent.
Erdogan has ruled the country with its 85 million inhabitants for two decades; since 2003 initially as Prime Minister and since 2014 as President. The presidential and parliamentary elections were therefore perceived by many people as voting for or against Erdogan and his Islamic conservative AKP.