The current Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan managed to win in the presidential and parliamentary elections held in Turkey on Sunday, as many polls predicted, although for the first time he will have to go to a 2nd round after falling slightly below the 50%+1 threshold of the votes needed to win the Presidency of the Republic in the 1st round. His main rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, achieved around 45% of the vote despite running as a candidate for a 6-party coalition and receiving support from Kurdish nationalists in south-eastern Turkey.
The presidential election in Istanbul – the largest city in the country – and Ankara – the capital – has been especially close, since Erdoğan began to prevail and, with the voting very advanced, his opposition rival ended up being the candidate with the most votes, although by barely a point of difference. In other strongholds of the CHP (Izmir, Antalya) or the AKP (Bursa), however, the result was clear from the beginning.
The surprise of the night was Sinan Oğan, candidate for the Presidency for the Turkish ultranationalist alliance ATA, who has practically doubled the forecasts given by the polls, exceeding 5% of the vote. The fourth contender, Muharrem İnce, had withdrawn his candidacy days before the election citing external pressures, and following an alleged sex video: even so, almost a quarter of a million Turks voted for him on Sunday.
Regarding the parliamentary elections held on the same day, Erdoğan’s AKP party continues to be the most voted party in Turkey, even prevailing in Istanbul – governed by the opposition – although it falls 7 points compared to the 2018 elections and gets around 35% of the votes: its 2nd worst result in history, just above AKP’s first victory in the 2002 elections.
The CHP rises slightly and is around 25% of the votes, while the Kurdish nationalists repeat as the third most voted force in Turkey and manage to prevail in these elections in almost all of southeastern Anatolia, although falling 3 points since they were running under the acronym of the almost unknown Yeşil Sol Parti (Green Left Party) amid fears that the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) would be closed for links to terrorism. In the next days, some allegations calling for a recount of the ballots that could deliver the handful of votes Erdoğan needs to win without going to a second round, can be expected.
VOTE
As a history lover, Pablo Gómez was captivated by Turkey from the first day he visited it in 2006: he got married there, has a house there… and has since become an expert on Turkey’s current affairs. With a long experience in media, he has been at the helm of hispanatolia.com since 2011.
