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Counting is underway across Turkey in elections that could end President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 20 years in power.
Results reported by state media – with more than half the vote counted – gave Mr Erdogan the lead over this main challenger for the presidency, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. Although that had been expected, with Mr Kilicdaroglu predicted to close the gap later given his relatively high support in some of Turkey’s biggest cities. Mr Kılıçdaroglu’s centre-left People’s Republican Party (CHP) disputed those figures and the candidate himself simply tweeted: “We are ahead.”
Ahead of voting day Mr Kilicdaroglu had been shown to have a lead in the opinion polls. Both men are seeking more than 50 per cent of the vote to avoid a run-off in two weeks.
The generally calm and orderly day of voting followed a tense campaign season punctuated by violence and divisive rhetoric. Long lines formed at schools converted into polling stations. Turks normally vote for national elections in very high numbers, and today’s turnout looked even higher than previous ballots.
Voters cited concerns about the economy as the primary issue driving their votes. But there are also concerns about the authoritarian drift of the country under the rule of President Recep Tayyp Erdogan, whose Justice and Development Party (AKP) has dominated the country’s politics for more than two decades.
“Without democracy and freedom, you can’t have any economy,” said Nil Adula, a 74-year-old earlier in the day, as he prepared to vote in central İstanbul.
“The most important thing is that the justice system is working properly.”
Voters are also electing legislators to fill Turkey’s 600-seat parliament, which has lost much of its legislative power under Mr Erdogan’s executive presidency. Mr Kilicdaroglu and the six-party opposition coalition he leads, are aiming to win both the presidency and a majority in parliament, promising to enact sweeping reforms that would return the country to a parliamentary democracy.
Gen Z Turk Idris Sinan, 18, voted for the opposition in his first-ever election
(Credit: Yusuf Sayman for The Independent)
“I thank all my citizens who went to the ballot boxes. We have all missed democracy, being together and embracing so much. You will see that from now on spring will come to this country and spring will always continue. I offer my deepest love and respect to all of you,” Mr Kilicdaroglu said after voting in Ankara’s Cankaya district. After voting in Istanbul’s Uskudar district, Mr Erdogan said: “We pray to the Lord for a better future for our country, our nation and Turkish democracy.”
With turnout high, the outcome will likely hinge on slivers of swing voters that include ethnic Kurds – who have voted for either the AKP or leftist parties traditionally – Turkish nationalists, and at least five million first-time voters whose allegiances remain unclear.
Mr Erdogan struggled to connect with Generation Z voters ahead of the vote, who appeared unmoved by his appeals to conservative and Islamic values.
“I see voting as a tool to change and influence the government from within,” said Idris Sinan, an 18-year-old high school student and first-time voter, as he emerged from a polling station.
Opposition party official Cigdem Gulduval helps organize meals for poll workers during Turkey’s elections
(Yusuf Sayman/ The Independent)
“We have been ruled by this party, the AKP, for 20 years. We start our country, become poor and more lawless,” he added.
Mr Erdogan also alienated ethnic Kurds, who used to vote for him in large numbers but – in a historic shift – embraced the secular centre-left candidacy of Mr Kilicdaroglu. “The election for us is about democracy and cultural and political rights,” said Mehmet Uzum, a 52-year-old Kurdish businessman in the Sultanbeyli district of Istanbul.
He said that Mr Erdogan and the AKP became toxic to Kurds since they partnered with the nationalist National Movement Party (MHP).
“We had a lot of friends who were AKP but then they switched to CHP because of the economy and all the religious talk,” said his daughter, Gizem, 22.
Turkish voters emerge from a balloting station in the Istanbul district of Fatih
(Yusuf Sayman/ The Independent)
But many voters said they were convinced by Mr Erdogan’s nationalist stance that the president said would prioritise Turkey’s security. That also Included attempts to associate the opposition with the West and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an outlawed separatist group that the US and EU label a terrorist organisation.
“We are not for America. We are not for the PKK,” said Faruk Baba, a 67-year-old clothing shop proprietor in the Fatih district of Istanbul.
When reminded that the Taliban of Afghanistan had endorsed Mr Erdogan he replied: “The Taliban are Muslims. We are Muslims.”
Among AKP supporters, many cited conspiracy theories spouted by Mr Erdogan in previous weeks that the opposition are a proxy for Western powers.
Voters wait in line to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections
(Yusuf Sayman/The Independent)
“Erdogan has stood strong for us,” Ziya Uztok, a 73-year-old in Uskudar. “Kilicdaroglu is an American project.”
“I accept Kilicdaroglu as a fellow citizen, but I would not vote for him,” he said.
However, the country’s faltering economy threatened the steadfast support conservative Turks have given Mr Erdogan for years. In a bid to secure support from citizens hit hard by inflation, the president has increased wages and pensions and subsidised electricity and gas bills, while showcasing Turkey’s homegrown defense and infrastructure projects. However, his government’s slow response to a devastating earthquake in southeast Turkey that killed 50,000 people in February added to voters’ dismay.
On a side street in Fatih, upbeat CHP organisers amassed meals to hand their volunteers throughout the district.
“Before there were certain neighbourhoods that we couldn’t go to campaign,” said Cigdem Gulduval, a local opposition party official.
“Now they’re more receptive. They’re all paying high prices at the same butchers as we are. They’re all paying the same gas bills. They’ll have to wait three or four months to get an appointment at the doctors.”
