Turkey elections
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday appeared posed to win the second round of elections scheduled for May 28, after months of polls indicating he was going to lose his hold on power after 20 years.
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After 99.38% of the votes were counted in Sunday's ballot, Erdogan was in the lead by nearly 5 points ahead of his opponent, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu. But since neither contender reached the required 50% needed to win, the two will face off again at the end of the month.
The result indicates a weakening on the part of the president, who never had to submit to a runoff before, but it was still substantially better than the polls predicted in the weeks leading up to the ballot. Then Kilicdaroglu was predicted to lead with his CHP Party with Friday polling even predicting he would surpass 50%.
His chances to win the second round seem slim at present, after the third candidate Sinan Ogan, who won 5.25% of the votes, backed out of the race. Speculations began as to who his voters would support.
Germany's Der Spiegel claimed Ogan told Kilicdaroglu that he would tell his voters to vote for the opposition leader if he would only walk back his support for the pro-Kurdish HDP Party, a move that would be a challenge because of his Kurdish supporters. "The fight against terror is a red line for me,"
Tensions were high in both major campaign headquarters on Sunday, after both candidates declared they were in the lead. At first, Erdogan appeared to be leading by 25% but as the night progressed, that was reduced to 5%.
The opposition candidate claimed pro-Erdogan media was slow in announcing results from Kilicdaroglu strongholds and even joined with Ogan to claim irregularities in the publishing of the count claiming Erdogan would do anything in his power to slow the counting of opponent votes.
With chances for the president for an additional term, improving, the Turkish pound dropped in value to a 2-month low of 19.70 pounds to the dollar. But it later gained value and rose to 19.66. This was in response to Erdogan's economic policies that included intervening in the Central Bank and interest rates.
Parliamentary election results favored Erdogan after 95% of the votes were counted showing his coalition still ahead despite his own party losing seats. That could also sway voters his way in the runoff and he will need only some of Ogan's voters to win.
He is expected to tell Turks that Kilicdaroglu would not be able to rule under a parliamentary minority made up of opposing political views, and the country was in need of a stable government to bounce back from the devastating earthquake earlier this year that killed more than 50,000, and the economic crisis.
The results of Sunday's election show the anger over the president's responsibility for the devastation, was not translated into votes and in 11 of the cities most hurt, Erdogan won over 60% of the ballots, twice the result of the previous elections. in five other cities, he lost no more than 3%.