Istanbul May 15 2023: With 99.96 percent of the ballot boxes opened, preliminary unofficial results show President Erdogan’s share of votes at 49.3 percent, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency.
As things stand, the Turkish presidential election is likely heading for a runoff vote on May 28, with neither of the two main candidates reaching the 50% threshold needed for an outright win.
Sinan Ogan, the presidential race’s third candidate, backed by the right-wing Ata Alliancem foresaw the polls going to a second round. At this time, Ogan said, there would be no announcement on who the alliance is going to support in the runoff.
Political analyst Cengiz Tomar told Al Jazeera from Istanbul, “the results so far spell out a great failure for the opposition.
“The results so far do not align at all with the sociological make-up of the Turkish people, where 35 percent of them are religious, conservative and on the right, and the remaining 65 percent are secular and Kurdish,” he said.
President Erdogan has said that he is far ahead of Kilicdaroglu in the presidential election, although he is not sure of his victory in the first round.
Erdogan, speaking at his party’s headquarters in Ankara, said he was 2.6 million votes ahead of the main opposition candidate.
“Throughout our political life, without exception, we have always respected the decision of the national will. We respect it in this election as well, and we will respect it in the next elections,” he said.
Erdogan also said he expected this number to rise with official results, adding: “We believe we will win in first round.”
“One of the surprises of this election is Sinan Ogan. So far, he has secured more than five percent of the votes. If he manages to maintain this percentage, it seems the election is going to a run-off.
“We can now see that President Erdogan is going down in numbers while Kilicdaroglu is steadily going up. But interestingly, votes that Ogan is getting is almost stable at around five percent and that is big news. It seems it may go to a second round and Ogan can be the kingmaker there.”
The mayors of Istanbul and Ankara say it’s too soon to call the election, Al Jazeera’s Farah Alzaman Shawki said, reporting from in front of the CHP headquarters in the capital Ankara.
Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said the party is going to accept the results whatever they may be. Ankara mayor Mansur Yavas said that Kilicdaroglu may still be able to win the election in the first round, Shawki reported.
According to the CHP, neither candidate has won more than 50 percent of the votes and Kilicdaroglu currently leads by a margin of one percent.
How voting works in Turkey:
In July 2018, a month after Erdogan won the presidency, Turkey transitioned from a parliamentary to a presidential system, abolishing the post of prime minister. Presidential and parliamentary elections are held on the same day every five years.
There are three presidential candidates: Recep Tayyip Erdogan (AK Party), Kemal Kilicdaroglu (CHP), and Sinan Ogan (ATA).
Any candidate who can secure more than half the presidential vote on May 14 will be the winner. If no candidate can secure that, there will be a second runoff between the two top contenders two weeks later.
2022 electoral changes
In a law passed by the parliament in April 2022, the election threshold decreased from 10 percent to seven percent.
More importantly, the amendments changed the way seats are distributed among member parties of an alliance.
In the past, parliamentary seats were allocated according to the total votes mustered by an alliance through common candidate lists prepared by allied political parties.
With the changes, the seats will be allocated according to the votes that each party receives individually.
