We’re going to close this blog now. Here’s a brief summary of where things stand as we await official confirmation of the result:
With nearly 99.5% of ballot boxes opened, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has received 49.4% of votes his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu 44.96%, Turkey’s elections council YSK has said.
The near-complete results mean the election will almost certainly go to a runoff, scheduled for 28 May, since neither of the two leading candidates received more than 50% of the vote.
Analysts have said it could be difficult for Kılıçdaroğlu to claw back Erdoğan’s five-point lead in the fortnight before the second round on 28 May, with the president likely to ride his stronger than forecast performance, surprise win in parliament and incumbency advantages to victory
Speaking early on Monday, Erdoğan said he would accept a runoff, and accused unnamed others of trying to “deceive the nation” by claiming they were ahead.
Kılıçdaroğlu said he too would accept a runoff, and would win it, saying: “Despite all of his lies and attacks, Erdoğan did not receive the desired outcome.”
The third candidate in the race, ultranationalist Sinan Oğan, emerged as a potential kingmaker with just over 5% of the vote.
Preliminary results from the parallel parliamentary elections showed Erdoğan’s governing coalition had secured 49.38% of the overall vote, while the opposition coalition has 35.16%, with potentially a further 10 percentage points if adding votes from the Kurdish-majority Peoples’ Democratic party or HDP (which ran under the Green Left party) and other socialist parties.
The lira fell against the dollar and euro as investors voiced disappointment that Erdogan’s era of unconventional economics does not appear to be coming to an immediate end.
Updated
Here’s a a bit of a breakdown of some of the data from the presidential race. With more than 99% of ballot boxes opened, we know Recep Tayyip Erdoğan got 49.4% of the vote in the first round and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu got 44.95%. A run-off is all but guaranteed, and many analysts think Erdoğan will win.
Kılıçdaroğlu outperformed Erdoğan in around 30 constituencies in the presidential election, primarily those in areas where the opposition candidate’s CHP party already enjoys significant popularity, such as the more liberal Aegean coast, the southern regions of the country, and Turkish Thrace in the far west.
Notably, Kılıçdaroğlu garnered a substantial share of the vote in southeast Turkey, which comprises provinces with a predominantly Kurdish population and where the left-wing Yesil Sol party secured the majority of parliamentary seats. His message definitely resonated very strongly with Kurdish voters.
Though the Kurdish vote was touted as the determining factor in this election – and the results do suggest it remains a crucial part of Kılıçdaroğlu’s electoral coalition – the opposition alliance will still need to gain more voters on the Turkish right to get Kılıçdaroğlu over 50% in a second round.
Excluding the country’s three largest cities of Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara, however, Erdoğan appears to have got a consistently larger share than Kılıçdaroğlu throughout Anatolia in a total of 51 provinces, including the cities of Bursa and Konya (where he would have expected to win).
Some of these victories have been decisive and Kahramanmaras province, which was badly hit by an earthquake earlier this year, is an indicator of that, delivering Erdoğan 70% in contrast to Kılıçdaroğlu’s 22%. Many of the leads Erdoğan gained in Anatolia appear to be quite sizeable victories, with Kılıçdaroğlu rarely getting over 30% of the vote in almost 19 of those constituencies.
Here is a visual aid provided by Anadolu Agency. The red areas were won by Kılıçdaroğlu and the orange constituencies are Erdoğan’s:
The Turkish lira is on a two-month low, its sovereign dollar bonds have tumbled and the cost of insuring exposure to the country’s debt has climbed sharply as investors digest a presidential election apparently headed for a runoff with the incumbent president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the lead.
Reuters reports that Turkish bank shares were also hit hard, with the country’s main banking index falling by more than 8%.
The lira was at 19.65 to the dollar on Monday morning, its weakest since a record low of 19.80 in March.
The Istanbul stock exchange was trading more than 2% lower, after an earlier 6.38% drop. Economists blame Erdogan for plunging the country into economic crisis, with inflation hitting 85% last year and the lira losing 80% of its value against the dollar in five years.
“This is a major disappointment to investors hoping for a win for opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu and the reversion to orthodox economic policy he promised,” said Hasnain Malik, one analyst.
Here is Reuters’ latest take on where things stand:
President Tayyip Erdoğan led comfortably in the first round of Turkey’s election on Monday, with his rival facing an uphill struggle to prevent him extending his rule into a third decade in a runoff vote on 28 May.
Turkish assets weakened on the news, which showed Erdoğan just below the 50% threshold needed to avoid sending the Nato country to a second round of a presidential election viewed as passing judgment on his autocratic rule.
Pro-government media cheered the outcome, with the Yeni Safak newspaper proclaiming “The people won”, referring to Erdoğan’s People’s Alliance, which appeared to have won a majority in parliament, potentially giving him a crucial edge in the presidential runoff.
“The winner has undoubtedly been our country,” Erdogan said in a speech to cheering supporters at the headquarters of his ruling Islamist-rooted AK party in the capital, Ankara, overnight.
Going into the election, the opposition had sensed its best chance yet of unseating Erdoğan, encouraged by polls showing him trailing his main challenger, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu. But the results suggested Erdoğan and his AK party had been able to rally conservative voters despite a cost-of-living crisis.
Kılıçdaroğlu, the head of a six-party alliance, vowed to prevail in the runoff and accused Erdogan’s party of interfering with the counting and reporting of results, calling on his supporters in the country of 84 million to be patient.
Updated
Iran’s foreign ministry has congratulated Turkey on the elections, saying the high turnout and successful organisation were the sign of a healthy democracy.
“The high voter turn-out in Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday, and the successful holding of the votes, are a sign of victory for democracy in the neighboring and Muslim country,” foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said on Twitter.
🔽 Iran congratulates Turkey over presidential, parliamentary votes
— Iran Foreign Ministry 🇮🇷 (@IRIMFA_EN) May 15, 2023
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani has reacted to the high electoral participation rates in Turkey’s election, describing it as a victory for democracy. pic.twitter.com/NE6a3JZ998
Updated
Election council: Erdoğan has won 49.4% of votes
With just over 99% of ballot boxes opened, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has received 49.4% of votes in the country’s presidential election, the head of the country’s election council has said.
Reuters is quoting Ahmet Yener as saying on Monday that Erdoğan’s rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, had scored 44.96% and the third-placed candidate, ultranationalist and potential kingmaker Sinan Ogan 5.2% of the vote.
The near-complete results strongly suggest the election will go to a runoff on 28 May since neither of the two leading candidates received more than 50% of the vote.
Updated
In a look at the foreign policy implications of an eventual victory for the opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, concluded they might be more about style than substance:
The distinctions being drawn between the foreign policy of the incumbent president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and challenger, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, are less a substantial reinterpretation of the Turkish national interest, more about the style, tone and predictability in securing that interest.
But tone matters in diplomacy, and the west would welcome an end to the era of confrontational rhetoric – even if the policy of balancing between east and west remains.
You can read Patrick’s full piece here:
A reminder of what the two leading candidates said in their election addresses overnight:
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan:
Even though the final results are not in, we are far ahead. We still don’t know the final official results, we are still waiting for the will of the nation to become apparent.
The fact that the election results have not yet been finalised does not diminish the fact that our nation’s choice is clearly in favour of us.
Erdoğan said he believed he would clear the 50% threshold necessary to avoid a runoff, but that if it came to a second round, “we would respect that too”.
Opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu:
Despite all of his lies and attacks, Erdoğan did not receive the desired outcome. No one should be enthusiastic about this being a done deal.
We will definitely, definitely win this election in the second round. Everyone will see it. Preliminary results show Erdoğan did not receive the public confidence vote that he expected.
The need for a change in society exceeds 50%. If the nation opts for a second round, it is more than welcome.
Hello, this is Jon Henley picking up the blog again from my colleague Graham Russell.
As Turkey awaits the official results of a presidential election that looks almost certain to go to a second-round runoff, some international analysts believe Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has the wind in his sails.
His chief rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, underperformed compared with polling expectations: on Friday, two polls projected the united opposition candidate would clear the 50% hurdle needed to avoid a runoff.
Mujtaba Rahman, of Eurasia Group, says the election is Erdoğan’s to lose:
🇹🇷: All momentum now w Erdogan. Has taken Parliament, despite expectations to contrary. Has performed much better in 1st round of Presidential vote than polls predicted. Has incumbency advantages. For these & many other reasons a @kilicdarogluk win on 28 May is now very unlikely
— Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) May 15, 2023
Updated
Summary
It is nearly 9am on Monday in Ankara and tens of millions of Turkish voters are waking up to a day of political uncertainty after going to the polls the previous day to cast their vote in the presidential and parliamentary elections. Here is where the vote stands at the moment:
A run-off election is looking increasingly likely between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu after neither appeared likely to reach the 50% threshold to win the presidential race outright.
The state-owned Anadolu news agency has Erdoğan on 49.24% and Kılıçdaroğlu on 45.06% but there have been discrepancies between the data given out by state media and the Supreme Election Council (YSK), which is overseeing the election.
Any second round of voting is likely to take place on 28 May.
Speaking in the early hours of Monday, Erdoğan said he believed he had enough votes to win the first round outright but that he would accept a runoff, and accused unnamed others of trying to “deceive the nation” by claiming they were in the lead.
Kılıçdaroğlu said he would accept a runoff, and would win it, saying: “Despite all of his lies and attacks, Erdoğan did not receive the desired outcome. No one should be enthusiastic about this being a done deal. The election is not won on the balcony,” he said, in an apparent reference to Erdoğan’s speech venue.
The YSK said more than 91% of the vote has been counted, but that there have been long delays in tallying up votes from overseas. The YSK blamed a rise in the number of voters abroad and parties running this year.
Kılıçdaroğlu and potential kingmaker Sinan Oğan – who has garnered about 5% of the vote – voiced concern about the pace of the vote count. Kılıçdaroğlu said some counts were being blocked by repeated objections. “Do not block the will of this nation. I call out to our democracy workers on the field. Never leave the ballot boxes and election boards. We are here until every single vote is counted,” he tweeted.
Oğan said he had heard of overseas votes being “manipulated”. “Vote counting is not done in a healthy environment. I warn the YSK [the Supreme Election Council], take the necessary measures immediately and ensure that the vote counting processes are carried out quickly. In addition, we will not allow a fait accompli with a manipulation of foreign votes.” He did not provide evidence for his claims.
In preliminary results from the parliamentary elections, state news agency Anadolu reported Erdoğan’s governing coalition had secured 49.38% of the overall vote, while the opposition coalition has 35.16%, with potentially a further 10 percentage points if adding votes from the Kurdish-majority Peoples’ Democratic party or HDP (which ran under the Green Left party) and other socialist parties. Anadolu said 96.39% of ballot boxes had been opened, which does not necessarily mean votes counted.
The share of the parliamentary vote for Erdoğan’s AKP party has shrunk substantially from prior legislative elections, with the reported result the worst in at least 20 years, when the AKP came to power in 2002.
The overall parliamentary result so far suggests a victory for a range of nationalist parties, but a surprise loss for the six-party opposition coalition headed by Kılıçdaroğlu, which had expected to clinch a majority. Kılıçdaroğlu had pledged to restore a parliamentary democracy system – rather than Erdoğan’s presidential one – if successful.
The lira fell against the euro as investors voiced disappointment that Erdogan’s era of unconventional economics does not appear to be coming to an immediate end.
Updated
In the early hours of Monday, presidential rivals Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu spoke to their supporters, and both backed the idea of a runoff vote if needed.
Turkey’s lira slipped to a fresh two-month low as the presidential election looked set to head to a runoff
The currency weakened to 19.70 to the dollar before retracing some of its losses to 19.66, on track for its worst session since early November and not far off the 19.80 level it hit in early March following deadly earthquakes in February.
The lira, which is prone to sharp swings before regular trading hours, has weakened 5% since the start of the year, Reuters reported. The currency has lost almost 95% of its value over the last decade-and-a-half as sugar-rush economic policies have led to spectacular boom and bust cycles, bouts of inflation and currency market turmoil.
John Plassard, an investment specialist at Mirabaud Group, said Turkish markets should remain highly volatile, regardless of who wins the elections. The economic policies that have undermined the lira will continue if Erdoğan remains in power, he said.
However, a change of government could put pressure on the currency before any new economic frameworks takes effect, he said.
So who is Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the opposition leader who is seeking to unseat Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? Ruth Michaelson and Deniz Barış Narlı took a look. He is a former civil servant and ex-accountant who leads a “humble life like yours”, he told a rally ahead of the election.
Now he heads a six-party opposition coalition, and has worked to garner support from the marginalised Kurdish community, becoming the face of the opposition’s strongest chance to unseat Erdoğan in a generation, whose popularity has dipped amid rampant inflation and a deepening cost of living crisis.
Other than promises of a socially democratic new dawn, the policies that Kılıçdaroğlu has been most vocal about include pledging to deport millions of Syrian and Afghan refugees living in Turkey. Asked how he intended to square this promise with a desire for Turkey to join the European Union, Kılıçdaroğlu claimed he could draw on the EU or even the United Nations for support.
Should he become president, one of Kılıçdaroğlu’s largest challenges would be inheriting Erdoğan’s careful balancing act to maintain ties with both Moscow and Kyiv, and a camaraderie with the Russian president that few other leaders can claim.
Summary
It is 6.30am in Ankara. Here is where the presidential and parliamentary elections stand at the moment.
A run-off election is looking increasingly likely between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu after neither appeared likely to reach the 50% threshold to win outright.
The state-owned Anadolu news agency has Erdoğan on 49.25% and Kılıçdaroğlu on 45.05% but there have been discrepancies between the data given out by state media and the Supreme Election Council (YSK).
Any second round of voting is likely to take place on 28 May.
Speaking in the early hours of Monday, Erdoğan said he believed he had enough votes to win outright but said he would accept a runoff, and accused unnamed others of trying to “deceive the nation” by claiming they were in the lead.
Kılıçdaroğlu said he would accept a runoff, and would win it, saying: “Despite all of his lies and attacks, Erdoğan did not receive the desired outcome. No one should be enthusiastic about this being a done deal. The election is not won on the balcony,” he said, referring to Erdoğan’s speech venue.
The YSK said more than 91% of the vote has been counted, but that there have been long delays in tallying up those that are being counted abroad. The YSK blamed a rise in the number of overseas voters and parties running this year.
Kılıçdaroğlu and potential kingmaker Sinan Oğan have voiced concern about the pace of the vote count. Kılıçdaroğlu said some counts were being blocked by repeated objections. “Do not block the will of this nation. I call out to our democracy workers on the field. Never leave the ballot boxes and election boards. We are here until every single vote is counted,” he tweeted.
Oğan said he had heard of overseas votes being “manipulated”. “Vote counting is not done in a healthy environment. I warn the YSK [the Supreme Election Council]. Take the necessary measures immediately and ensure that the vote counting processes are carried out quickly. In addition, we will not allow a fait accompli with a manipulation of foreign votes.”
In the parliamentary elections, state news agency Anadolu reported Erdoğan’s governing coalition had secured 49.38% of the overall vote, while the opposition coalition has 35.16%, with potentially another 10 percentage points if adding votes from the Kurdish-majority Peoples’ Democratic party or HDP (which ran under the Green Left party) and other socialist parties.
The share of the parliamentary vote for Erdoğan’s AKP party has shrunk substantially from prior legislative elections, with the preliminary result the worst in at least 20 years, when the AKP first came to power in 2002.
Anadolu said 96.39% of ballot boxes had been opened, which does not necessarily mean votes counted. The overall result so far suggests a victory for a range of nationalist parties, but a surprise loss for the six-party opposition coalition, which had expected to clinch a majority.
The lira fell against the euro as investors voiced disappointment that Erdogan’s era of unconventional economics does not appear to be coming to an immediate end.
Updated
If the election does end with a runoff in two weeks’ time, Erdoğan may have an advantage, Howard Eissenstat, an associate professor of Middle East history and politics at St Lawrence University in New York, has suggested. Voters would not want a “divided government”, he said, referring to the parliamentary elections also being held the same day.
Preliminary results reported by state news agency Anadolu said Erdoğan’s governing coalition had secured 49.38% of the overall vote, with the opposition coalition on 35.16%, with potentially another 10 percentage points if adding votes from the Kurdish-majority Peoples’ Democratic party or HDP (which ran under the Green Left party) and other socialist parties.
However, the vote share for Erdoğan’s AKP party has shrunk substantially from prior legislative elections, with the preliminary result the worst in at least 20 years, when the AKP first came to power in 2022.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who leads a six-party coalition, had hoped to enact sweeping reforms, overhauling two decades of Erdoğan policies and returning Turkey to parliamentary democracy.
Kılıçdaroğlu is a member of Turkey’s Alevi religious minority and said he intends to step back from Erdoğan’s heavy-handed control of public institutions and the media, promising a more inclusive Turkey and an end to the combative style of politics that Erdoğan is known for. The CHP leader has also promised to deport millions of Syrian and Afghan refugees who sought shelter in Turkey from conflicts at home.
Sunday’s vote also represents a test of Kılıçdaroğlu’s promises of inclusion, in particular whether his outreach to Kurdish voters had been successful. Some Kurdish voters in Istanbul were overjoyed at the prospect that Erdoğan could be voted out, after years of attacks branding their party as an enemy of the state and the jailing of its leader, Selahattin Demirtaş, who has thrown his support behind Kılıçdaroğlu.
The outcome of the presidential election could soon have ramifications on the world stage, particularly in terms of the war in Ukraine. Erdoğan played a crucial role in the grain deal that allowed Kyiv to continue to export its harvests via the Black Sea.
However, Erdoğan also objected to the accession to Nato of Sweden and Finland, later allowing Helsinki to join in return for a promised crackdown on groups seen by Ankara as terrorists, and to free up defence exports.
Turkey has repeatedly said that Sweden needed to take additional steps against supporters of Kurdish militants and members of the network Ankara holds responsible for a 2016 coup attempt. Turkey treats both groups as terrorist organisations.
As we await a definitive result, our Middle East correspondent Bethan McKernan has taken a look at how President Erdoğan has reshaped Turkey in his image over the past 20 years, since becoming prime minister in 2003.
“Four years ago, when ballots in local elections across Turkey were still being counted, municipality workers in Istanbul had already put up billboard posters of the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his Justice and Development (AKP) party’s candidate for mayor in the cultural and commercial capital, thanking the city’s residents for their votes.
“The hubris was short-lived. An opposition candidate won, and did even better in a controversial and high-stakes re-run – a moment that in retrospect many hoped would mark the beginning of the end of the political powerhouse’s long career.”
Updated
Summary
It is approaching 5am in Ankara. Here is where the presidential and parliamentary elections stand at the moment.
A run-off election is looking increasingly likely between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his main rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu after neither appeared likely to reach the 50% threshold to win outright.
The state-owned Anadolu news agency has Erdoğan on 49.25% and Kılıçdaroğlu on 45.05% but there have been discrepancies between the data given out by state media and the Supreme Election Council (YSK).
Any second round of voting is likely to take place on 28 May.
Speaking in the early hours of Monday, Erdoğan said he believed he had enough votes to win outright but said he would accept a runoff, and accused unnamed others of trying to “deceive the nation” by claiming they were in the lead.
Kılıçdaroğlu said he would accept a runoff, and would win it, saying: “Despite all of his lies and attacks, Erdoğan did not receive the desired outcome. No one should be enthusiastic about this being a done deal. The election is not won on the balcony,” he said, referring to Erdoğan’s speech venue.
The YSK said more than 91% of the vote has been counted, but that there have been long delays in tallying up those that are being counted abroad. The YSK blamed a rise in the number of overseas voters and parties running this year.
Kılıçdaroğlu and potential kingmaker Sinan Oğan have voiced concern about the pace of the vote count. Kılıçdaroğlu said some counts were being blocked by repeated objections. “Do not block the will of this nation. I call out to our democracy workers on the field. Never leave the ballot boxes and election boards. We are here until every single vote is counted,” he tweeted.
Oğan said he had heard of overseas votes being “manipulated”. “Vote counting is not done in a healthy environment. I warn the YSK [the Supreme Election Council]. Take the necessary measures immediately and ensure that the vote counting processes are carried out quickly. In addition, we will not allow a fait accompli with a manipulation of foreign votes.”
In the parliamentary elections, state news agency Anadolu reported Erdoğan’s governing coalition had secured 49.38% of the overall vote, while the opposition coalition has 35.16%, with potentially another 10 percentage points if adding votes from the Kurdish-majority Peoples’ Democratic party or HDP (which ran under the Green Left party) and other socialist parties.
The share of the parliamentary vote for Erdoğan’s AKP party has shrunk substantially from prior legislative elections, with the preliminary result the worst in at least 20 years, when the AKP first came to power in 2022.
Anadolu said 96.39% of ballot boxes had been opened, which does not necessarily mean votes counted. The overall result so far suggests a victory for a range of nationalist parties, but a surprise loss for the six-party opposition coalition, which had expected to clinch a majority.
The lira fell against the euro as investors voiced disappointment that Erdogan’s era of unconventional economics does not appear to be coming to an immediate end.
Updated
There have been delays to the counting of the votes lodged overseas. Ahmet Yener, the head of the Supreme Election Council (YSK), said earlier that 1,817, 010 votes had been cast overseas.
Only 30.8% of overseas ballot boxes had been opened, he said, a significant lag on the 89% of domestic ballot boxes that had been opened at that point. (We’re now up to more than 91% counted, according to the YSK).
Yeneer said the delays were down to a rise in the number of overseas voters, and in the number of parties running in the elections. There were eight parties in 2018, rising to 24 this time around.
He said: “The process operating in 2018 is similar to the process operating in 2023. There is no problem in entering data from district election boards to our boards. Let the public rest easy.”
There has been a lot of speculation about who the third presidential candidate, Sinan Oğan, would throw his weight behind in the event of a second round runoff. Given the margins, his 5.25% would be a huge help to anyone who can gobble up the votes.
A reporter with Der Spiegel, a German news site, suggested he’d given the first indication of what he’d like from the opposition Nation’s Alliance in exchange for his support.
Oğan supposedly told Kılıçdaroğlu that he will only lend his support if the “HDP is excluded from the political system.” The party he is of course referring to is its successor party, Yeşil Sol.
Sinan Ogan in an exclusive interview with @derspiegel after the election: „I ll only support Kilicdaroglu if the HDP is excluded from the political system.“ pic.twitter.com/YJajRhldGt
— Maximilian Popp (@Maximilian_Popp) May 14, 2023
However he quickly denied the report tweeting that he said no such thing:
Hayırdır Der Spiegel, size verdiğim röportajda Türk basınına dediğimiz genel şartlardan farklı bir şey demedik. Bunu nereden uydurdunuz? https://t.co/n4QcDHF7Ht
— Dr. Sinan Oğan (@DrSinanOgan) May 15, 2023
Updated
A bit more from Ruth Michaelson on the parliamentary elections happening alongside the presidential side of things.
Taking to the stage to claim victory in front of his supporters before all the votes had officially been counted, Erdoğan claimed his alliance had won a majority in the parliament.
Turkey’s election authority, the YSK, said that with 91.93% of votes reported in the presidential election, Erdoğan had secured 49.49% of the vote, while Kılıçdaroğlu had 44.79%. However, the authority has not publicly commented on the parliamentary election results.
Only Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu has reported parliamentary results, describing 96.39% of “ballot boxes opened”, which does not necessarily mean votes counted. The discrepancy between Anadolu’s percentage of the vote counted and the YSK’s throughout the evening has not been explained.
Anadolu is currently reporting that Erdoğan’s governing coalition has secured 49.38% of the overall vote, while the opposition coalition has 35.16%, with potentially another 10 percentage points if they were to add on votes from the Kurdish-majority Peoples’ Democratic party or HDP (which ran under the Green Left party) and other socialist parties.
The overall results in the parliamentary so far suggest a victory for a range of nationalist parties, but a surprise loss for the six-party opposition coalition (which includes one nationalist party), who had expected to clinch a majority.
Kılıçdaroğlu hit back at Erdoğan in what was a more subdued speech: “Despite all of his lies and attacks, Erdoğan did not receive the desired outcome. No one should be enthusiastic about this being a done deal. The election is not won on the balcony,” he said, referring to Erdoğan’s speech venue.
He added: “We will definitely, definitely win this election in the second round. Everyone will see it. Preliminary results show that Erdoğan did not receive the public confidence vote that he expected. The need for a change in society exceeds 50%. The AKP’s loss of votes demonstrates this too. The process of entering [election] data is ongoing. If the nation opts for a second round, it is more than welcome.”
A few details about the likely kingmaker in a run-off, Sinan Oğan
Sinan Oğan’s performance has caught a lot of people watching this election off guard. At the present count he has won well over 2 million votes, which is just over 5%. Muharrem İnce, the wildcard candidate who pulled out before the count will probably be smacking himself as Oğan gets ready to negotiate with the competing major camps if this goes to a second round.
Oğan, 56, is leading a right-wing nationalist coalition called the Ancestral Alliance (ATA) which is composed of four parties (Zafer party, Adalet party, Ulkem party, and Türkiye İttifakı party). He is of ethnic Azeri origin and hails from the eastern Igdir province (where he got only 11% of the vote). Oğan studied a PhD in Moscow and is a fluent Russian speaker.
He also previously stood on the ticket of MHP – AKP’s coalition partner - representing the party in parliament in 2011 back when the party was strongly opposed to Erdoğan who was then prime minister. He was twice expelled from the MHP but remained with it after a court ruled in his favour. After a series of splits within the right-wing movement, which doesn’t appear to have diluted how much of the vote these parties capture, he eventually went his own way. He was among a band of political firebrands, including Meral Aksener, who leads the Iyi party, who split with MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, when he began working with Erdoğan to change Turkey’s political system.
On the policy side Oğan is thin but he has pushed anti-Syrian refugee messages to increase his popularity and is staunchly anti-PKK, a Kurdish armed group the Turkish government has been fighting since the 1980s considered a terrorist organisation in Ankara and across the EU.
It isn’t clear just yet whether he has taken votes from Kılıçdaroğlu or Erdoğan’s alliance, but his small share of the vote will likely be enough to tip the scale in favour of whichever candidate he leans towards if there is a second round. Given how tight this election has been he’ll probably demand a political pound of flesh in exchange for his support though it would be difficult to imagine a hardline Turkish nationalist entering an alliance which has the support of the pro-Kurdish Yesil Sol party, which is often accused by Turkish nationalists of being too close to the PKK. When asked by reporters which way he would go in a second round run-off he said: “We will look at their national stances and competence. We will look at the situation of affiliation with terrorism and seeking help from terrorism.”
Der Spiegel earlier reported that he would work with Kılıçdaroğlu if the HDP was “excluded”, but Oğan rejected that in a tweet. In any case, that would be tricky for Kılıçdaroğlu whose electoral strategy relies on Kurdish voters being onboard. Kurdish populated regions in southeast Turkey voted overwhelmingly in his favour in this election and that strategy served is party well in 2019 to get Ekrem İmamoğlu in power in Istanbul. It isn’t clear that gaining Oğan would make up for loosing a large chunk of the Kurdish vote.
Updated
I will accept a run-off vote, says challenger Kılıçdaroğlu
Erdoğan’s main rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, has spoken, giving a competing version of how the vote is going. He has said that he will accept a run-off vote, referring to it as the people’s decision, and said he would win it.
Erdoğan had not obtained the result he wanted, he said.
Both the main rivals have now said they would accept a run-off vote if that is what was decided, though Erdoğan has said he believes he has the votes to win outright.
The results also reveal interesting trends in major Turkish cities. Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, has swung towards Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu but only just. The AKP has the most MPs from the city’s three regions which complicates the ‘he who rules Istanbul, rules Turkey maxim’ which has been reliable bellwether of how the country is leaning.
Turkey’s second-largest city, Ankara, also went for the opposition candidate and its third largest Izmir did too. Bursa, the country’s fourth largest city, and Konya, a traditional conservative strong-hold and the fifth largest were kept by the AKP-led People’s Alliance.
As with prior elections the AKP has been much stronger across Anatolia, than the CHP-led alliance Nation’s Alliance but the results do show that Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu managed to successful connect with the Kurdish populated south-east. According to Anadolu, in Tunceli he got 80% of the vote, 75% in the border region of Sirnak and 71% in Diyarbakir.
More than 91% of vote counted, election council says
The head of Turkey’s election authority has said that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is leading Sunday’s presidential elections with 49.49%, with 91.93% of ballot boxes counted.
Ahmet Yener said Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Erdogan’s main rival, had 44.49% of votes.
The general trend in this election on the parliamentary level has been towards a diffusion of votes towards smaller and in some cases newer parties and away from Turkey’s larger parties like the CHP, but even more so away from the governing AKP. As it stands with over 95% of ballots opened according to state agency Anadolu, the AKP-led People’s Alliance has almost half of the parliament and constitutes a large majority but its share of the vote has shrunk substantially from prior legislative elections.
Here is some data taking us back to when the AKP first came to power in 2002:
2002 - 34.4%
2007 - 46.5%
2011 - 49.3%
2015 - 49.5%
2018 - 42.6%
2023 - 35.4%
This won’t surprise regular observers of Turkish politics. Soaring inflation has eaten away at the purchasing power of regular Turks, and as inflation has increased, the AKP’s popularity has declined also. That was clearest when another broad opposition alliance led by the CHP which Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was the patient architect of took Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara in 2019 local elections.
Updated
Outright win is possible, Erdoğan says
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has just given a jubilant and energetic speech to his followers gathered outside his Justice and Development party (AKP) headquarters in the capital, Ankara, where he strode out onto the stage singing one of his campaign songs, entitled “For those who hear, and for those who don’t hear.”
The speech appears to be an attempt to seize control of the narrative in a tightly contested vote where the opposition say many of their votes have yet to be included in the official tally. Turkey’s official elections authority the YSK said that 87.13% of the vote had been counted.
“We love you very much,” he told the crowd, appearing fired up in a way that has rarely been quite so apparent on the campaign trail. Erdoğan initially promised a more subdued election campaign following twin deadly earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people, but recently switched to staging regular rallies.
“Somebody is in the kitchen, we are on the balcony,” said Erdoğan, in a reference to his rival presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s campaign videos filmed in his kitchen intended to portray his rival as down-to-earth.
He added: “Our country has completely a feast of democracy with these elections. Although the results are not clear yet we are in the lead by a long way. Both domestic and overseas voting results will take time to come in, but of course we are not like those who try to deceive the nation perhaps for the last time by creating a picture where they are far behind but saying they were ahead. We have always been honest to our nation, we know that we are far ahead in the election today, however we expect that the exact results will come.”
“We believe we can get above 50% in this round,” he said, indicating he now believes that an outright win might still be possible rather than a run-off in two weeks’ time.
Updated
It is after 2am in Istanbul and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is now speaking on the balcony at his party’s headquarters. We’ll bring you the details soon.
Summary
A run-off election is looking increasingly likely between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling AKP party and his opposition rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s CHP.
Based on results so far, neither party appears likely to reach the 50% threshold to win outright. Any second round run-off would take place on 28 May.
The Supreme Election Council (YSK) says 87% of the vote has been counted, but that there have been long delays in tallying up those that are being counted abroad.
The state-owned Anadolu news agency has Erdoğan on 49.38% and Kılıçdaroğlu on 44.90% but there have been discrepancies between the data given out by state media and the YSK.
Opposition figures Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Sinan Oğan have voiced concern about the pace of the vote count. Kılıçdaroğlu said some counts were being blocked by repeated objections. “Do not block the will of this nation. I call out to our democracy workers on the field. Never leave the ballot boxes and election boards. We are here until every single vote is counted,” he tweeted.
Oğan said he had heard of overseas votes being “manipulated”. “Vote counting is not done in a healthy environment. I warn the YSK [the Supreme Election Council]. Take the necessary measures immediately and ensure that the vote counting processes are carried out quickly. In addition, we will not allow a fait accompli with a manipulation of foreign votes.”
The lira has fallen against the euro as investors voiced disappointment that Erdogan’s era of unconventional economics does not appear to be coming to an immediate end.
Sinan Oğan, who leads a right-wing nationalist coalition called the Ancestral Alliance (ATA) that is currently on about 5% of the vote – and a potential crucial part of negotiations in the event of a run-off – has voiced concerns about the overseas votes.
“We have heard that some manipulations were carried out in the overseas vote counting processes,” he has tweeted. “Vote counting is not done in a healthy environment. I warn the YSK [the Supreme Election Council]. Take the necessary measures immediately and ensure that the vote counting processes are carried out quickly. In addition, we will not allow a fait accompli with a manipulation of foreign votes.”
87% of vote counted, says election council
A spokesman for the Supreme Election Council in Turkey has just said 87.13% of votes have been counted, with long delays in tallying up those that are being counted abroad.
Here are some of those scenes in Istanbul
The official account of Erdoğan’s AKP party just tweeted that “the balcony is ready. The nation is waiting for its leader,” with a video of jubilant scenes of crowds outside their headquarters the capital Ankara. Here in Istanbul, there was a brief burst of what looked like celebratory fireworks just over the Bosphorus – although there is little to suggest from what we know of the count that Erdoğan’s side has reasons to claim outright victory in the presidential election.
The parliamentary results are also hanging in the balance, with the state news agency reporting that the AKP’s coalition could be on course to winning a majority, although it is unclear how many of the votes have been entered into the system of the supreme election council (YSK).
Balkon hazır. Millet liderini bekliyor. 🇹🇷 pic.twitter.com/LH8jcebRal
— AK Parti (@Akparti) May 14, 2023
Updated
The lira has fallen against the euro as investors voiced disappointment that Erdogan’s era of unconventional economics does not appear to be coming to an immediate end.
The currency also weakened against the dollar, with the lira on track for its worst session since early November.
Kılıçdaroğlu cotinued: “Do not block the will of this nation. I call out to our democracy workers on the field. Never leave the ballot boxes and election boards. We are here until every single vote is counted.”
He says there have been repeated objections at 300 ballot boxes in Ankara and 783 in Istanbul.
Opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said president Erdoğan’s camp is blocking the system by objecting to results from certain ballot boxes, Al Jazeera reports.
“There are ballot boxes that have been objected to six times, 11 times,” Kılıçdaroğlu said, according to Al Jazeera. “You are blocking the will of Turkey.”
He added: “You cannot prevent what will happen through objections. We will not allow a fait accompli.”
Kılıçdaroğlu also urged Erdogan to stop “perception management” and requested the national election board act responsibly.
Updated
The mayor of Ankara, a senior member of Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s opposition CHP party, has said he expects his candidate to finish ahead of President Erdoğan.
“There is a short time left to get all the results,” Mansur Yavas told a joint press conference in Istanbul with the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu.
“When we see them, we will see our leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu finishing this round as the front-runner.” But Yavas said there was now “a high possibility” that the race would go to a second round.
The electoral council, meanwhile, which will announce the final result, has said a total of 69% of votes – cast both at home and abroad – have been entered into its system.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is registered to vote in Istanbul, has made a surprise appearance there, mingling with supporters, before getting into his car and heading to the capital, Ankara to await the official results.
Updated
As we wait for the last few million votes in the presidential election to be counted, we shouldn’t forget today’s other poll: the election for Turkey’s 600-seat parliament.
At present over 80% of ballot boxes have been opened and Erdoğan’s People’s Alliance (a coalition of right-leaning and right-wing parties, including his AKP’s coalition partner MHP) appear on track to become the largest block. No surprises there.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s opposition Nation Alliance, led by his CHP (with the right-wing Iyi Party) is the second largest, and appears to have bagged around a third of the votes (35.6% of the total, according the state news agency Anadolu).
Erdoğan’s former economy tsar, Ali Babacan, and former foreign policy guru, Ahmet Davutoglu, are both running on the CHP ticket (despite having established their own parties in the run up to the election) and don’t appear to have significantly impacted the Nation Alliance’s share of the vote.
But the CHP did well on along Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, in Thrace and in the major cities of Izmir, Istanbul and the capital Ankara.
The results also indicate a strong showing for nationalist parties. MHP was real the surprise performer tonight. At the present count, the MHP and its splinter party, Iyi, have about 20% of the vote between them, though they represent opposing camps in this race.
The Yesil Sol party, a successor to the HDP, has swept up the country’s south-eastern region with strong showings in Diyarbakir, Hakkari and Sirnak (over 60%). Most of this region also voted strongly in favour of opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
Most people will have their eyes on the results from the presidential elections, which increasingly look like they’ll go to a second round.
But the Turkish parliament remains an important institution and will have a major role in the coming government, either as a spoiler for a president who doesn’t control it, or a boon for a president whose political allies are represented in it.
Despite the powerful executive presidency Erdoğan introduced in 2018, the parliament has the power to declare war, ratify treaties, pass budgets, amend the constitution and scrutinise the activities of the government.
Updated
Members, officials and supporters of both candidates’ parties are waiting for confirmation of the results in a presidential race that now looks likely to head to a second-round runoff in two weeks’ time.
It could be some time before we get an official result.
Ahmet Yener, the head of Turkey’s supreme election council, – which will announce the final figures – has said it has entered just over 47% of domestic votes and 12.6% of votes cast abroad into its system.
In short statement outside the council’s headquarters, Yener also rejected opposition allegations that it was deliberately delaying publishing some results.
Agencies: Erdoğan vote falls below 50%
The gap between the two leading candidates continues to narrow as more big-city votes – generally favouring opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu – come in, but Turkish news agencies are still reporting different numbers.
They agree on one thing, however: a runoff now looks increasingly likely.
The state news agency, Anadolu, is reporting that more than 90% of votes have been counted. It has President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on 49.8% – crucially, below the 50% needed to avoid a runoff – and Kılıçdaroğlu on 44.4%.
The privately owned Anka agency is reporting that 94% of votes have so far been counted. It has Erdoğan on 49.02% and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu on 45.2%.
In either case, as things are at the moment, the presidential election is heading for a second round on 28 May.
Updated
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has tweeted to criticise opposition attempts to declare the result ahead of time, and – as his rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu did earlier – to ask party and election officials to remain vigilant with ballot boxes.
14 Mayıs seçimlerinin uhulet ve suhulet ile büyük bir demokrasi şöleni şeklinde gerçekleşmesi, Türkiye’mizin sahip olduğu demokratik olgunluğun ifadesidir.…
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) May 14, 2023
“While the election was held in such a positive and democratic atmosphere and the vote counting is still going on, trying to announce results hastily amounts to a usurpation of the national will,” he said.
“I ask all of officials and my colleagues to stay at the ballot boxes, no matter what, until the results are officially finalised. I congratulate all citizens who voted in the name of democracy and are taking part in the election work.”
Ultranationalist Sinan Oğan, currently credited with about 5% of the vote and a potential kingmaker in the event of a runoff, has said he thinks the election will probably go to a second round on 28 May.
“We see a high probability that the elections will go to the second round” since neither main candidate is on course to win 50% of the vote, he said, adding that “Turkish nationalists and Kemalists are key to this election”.
Opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has posted another tweet suggesting that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s vote share, which began the evening at 60%, has now fallen to below 50%.
He urged election officials to stay alert and not abandon their posts during the rest of the evening.
Yüzde 60'lar ile başlayan kurgu şu anda 50'nin altına düştü. Sandık müşahitleri ve seçim kurullarındaki görevlilerimiz bulundukları yerden asla ayrılmasın. Bu gece uyumayacağız Halkım. YSK'yı uyarıyorum, illerdeki veri girişini sağlamak zorundasınız.
— Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (@kilicdarogluk) May 14, 2023
“The fiction, which started with 60%, has now dropped below 50%,” Kılıçdaroğlu said. “Ballot observers and election board officials should never leave their places. We will not sleep tonight, my people. I warn the YSK [election commission], you have to provide data from the provinces.”
Updated
We have just arrived at the Istanbul headquarters of the largest opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), after a journey across Istanbul where the streets were remarkably quiet.
Earlier today, people were outside enjoying a day of spring weather and cheerfully walking to the polls no matter who their chosen candidate was, but as the results started to come in, the streets fell silent – it felt like basically everyone was at home glued to their television sets.
If they did venture out, they were frantically following on their phones. The mood at the CHP is predictably tense – everyone here is quietly glued to any screen showing the results.
As the vote count nears 80% of votes counted – at least, according to the state news agency Anadolu (which has been the source of plenty of controversy so far this evening) – the race is looking increasingly close and we’re starting to see two parallel narratives emerge.
According to the opposition, they are ahead. According to Erdoğan and the spokesperson of his Justice and Development (AKP) party as well as the state news agency, the opposition is falling behind. The opposition claim this is due to the order in which the ballots have been counted, and that the government has slow-walked counting in opposition-majority areas.
As the results started to trickle in a couple of hours ago, leading opposition MPs held multiple press conferences to drive home the message that they are winning, at least according to their data. Now we are seeing Erdoğan and the AKP pushing back, although we are likely to hear more from the CHP as this long night continues.
Ali İhsan Yavuz, an AKP MP in charge of election coordination, just told reporters outside their headquarters in Ankara that “there is no panic and there is no need to blame the institutions”. He added: “We are ahead in both the parliamentary and the presidential results.”
Updated
Reuters: both camps say runoff looking likely
Reuters is reporting sources in both President Erdoğan’s ruling AKP party and his opposition rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s CHP as saying that based on results so far, neither is likely to clear the 50% threshold needed for an outright win.
With 75% of votes counted, the state-owned Anadolu news agency has Erdoğan on 50.76% and Kılıçdaroğlu on 43.43%. The private Anka agency also has Erdoğan ahead, but by a much narrower margin: roughly 48% to 47%.
The steady performance of the third candidate, nationalist Sinan Oğan, unchanged at just over 5.3%, makes a second round – scheduled for a fortnight’s time on 28 May – more likely, several analysts have said.
Updated
Ankara’s mayor, Mansur Yavaş, from Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s centre-left CHP party, has said that based on data from party workers monitoring the count, the retired civil servant is ahead.
Turkish news agencies are reporting that President Erdoğan has a lead of between two and eight percentage points with about two-thirds of votes counted.
Yavaş insisted Kılıçdaroğlu was still in a position to win the election outright on Sunday night by securing more than 50% of the vote. Turkey’s supreme election council is expected to announce the official result later.
Updated
Ömer Çelik, a spokesperson for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling AKP party, has accused opposition leaders of “an attempt to assassinate the national will” by claiming the Anadolu state news agency is distorting the results (see 18.03 BST).
“Even before the results are finalised, all of a sudden the opposition alliance’s spokesperson and mayors appear on TV. As usual, they began to say that Anadolu Agency is manipulating data,” Çelik said.
Updated
More than 50% of votes counted
More than half the votes have now been counted in Turkey’s presidential election and the gap between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his chief rival, opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, continues to narrow.
According to the Anadolu state news agency, which the opposition has accused of deliberately releasing results to show the outgoing president ahead, the count with nearly 53% of votes tallied stands at:
Erdoğan : 51.8%
Kılıçdaroğlu : 42.3%
Oğan: 5.3%
The privately owned Anka news agency, however, has Kılıçdaroğlu already ahead with slighty less of the vote tallied. His CHP party has said their candidate is leading according to its data, and is on course to clear the 50% threshold to avoid a runoff and be declared president on Sunday night.
Updated
Supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his ruling AKP party have gathered to cheer outside its Istanbul headquarters as early results show the incumbent president ahead.
Analysts have said the gap between Erdoğan and his rival, united opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, should continue to narrow as the evening wears on.
Updated
Opposition vice-presidential candidates Mansur Yavaş and Ekrem İmamoğlu have just given a press conference in the Turkish capital, Ankara, lashing out at the state news agency Anadolu for what they said was broadcasting distorted results.
The opposition accuse Anadolu of broadcasting counted AKP votes first in a warped picture of the overall result, and say they are in the lead.
The largest opposition party, the Republican People’s party (CHP) is running a parallel count by stationing their own observers at every ballot box and photographing every ballot as it is counted.
“According to our results, with 23.87% of the votes counted, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu is ahead,” said Yavaş, who is also Ankara mayor, adding: “This data comes from all over Turkey and I can say that we are ahead in Istanbul and Ankara.”
İmamoğlu, whose election as mayor of Istanbul in 2019 was a close race that was ultimately disputed by Erdoğan and re-run before he was declared the winner a second time, also directed his anger at Anadolu.
“Unfortunately, we are still experiencing the scene we see in every election. Another case of Anadolu Agency [...] AA’s reputation is below zero,” he said.
Presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu simply tweeted: “We are ahead.”
Öndeyiz.
— Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (@kilicdarogluk) May 14, 2023
Updated
Erdoğan's lead narrows with one-third of votes counted
With more than a third (38.3%) of votes counted, according to the Anadolu state news agency (AA), the gap between the two leading candidates is shrinking.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan now stands on 52.7%, his centre-left opposition rival Kamel Kılıçdaroğlu on 41.4%, and the nationalist Oğan on 5.4%.
Updated
The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has said early results are looking positive for Kılıçdaroğlu.
Faik Öztrak, the party’s spokesperson, said in a televised speech:
According to the data we received so far, we see the table very positively. When the number of ballot boxes opened reaches a meaningful figure, we will start to share the number of votes.
Updated
The Guardian’s video team were on the ground in Turkey last week and produced a fascinating film about the importance of the Kurdish vote in these elections.
Kurdish voters, many of them anti-Erdoğan, account for about 10-15% of the country’s electorate and their ballots could prove crucial. You can watch the film here:
Updated
Underlining how important the big cities are to Kılıçdaroğlu’s vote share, Ruth Michaelson writes, the head of his CHP party in Istanbul and leading opposition figure Canan Kaftancıoğlu has just released a partial opposition parallel count in Istanbul.
The move seems designed to calm anxious opposition voters as the count continues.
İstanbul’da saat: 19.17 itibariyle sandıkların %15 sisteme girdi ve %15 veriye göre:
— Canan Kaftancıoğlu (@Canan_Kaftanci) May 14, 2023
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu: % 51.33
R. Tayyip Erdoğan : % 43.94
Sinan Oğan : % 4.45
Muharrem İnce : % 0.28#SanaSöz 🫶
With 15% of the ballot boxes entered into the system in Istanbul, the vote stares stand at:
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu: 51.33%
R. Tayyip Erdogan: 43.94%
Sinan Oğan : 4.45%
Muharrem İnce : % 0.28
The vote in Istanbul is key as it is Turkey’s largest city, with more than 15 million residents out of 85 million in total. At least 64 million people were expected to cast their ballots across the country on Sunday.
Updated
The Guardian’s Ruth Michaelson in Istanbul has this to say on the vote tally:
Voters across Turkey are now glued to their television screens, watching results come in for what many are calling the most important election of the year.
In some cases, people have travelled across the country to go back to their villages destroyed by powerful twin earthquakes earlier this year in order to cast their ballots, and turnout is expected to be unusually high.
People everywhere reported unusually long wait times and long lines to vote. With the broadcast ban on the vote count now lifted, we’re now seeing results trickle in live, in an extremely tense vote that is expected to be close.
Erdoğan has almost total control of the domestic media, which is affecting how we learn the latest results.
Referring to the Anadolu Agency, a representative from the majority Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) to the electoral commission said: “There is a great media manipulation. AA gets all the information from the government’s partners.”
Ziya Meral of the Royal United Services Institute in London said: “With all of its faults, yes it’s not a fair election, it’s decently free but not fully, given the overall conditions.
But you can still select the candidate you want freely, so it’s substantially free from that perspective. Even for Erdoğan this vote matters so much, which goes to show this is a fundamental political battle for him.”
Key event
Just over 23% of votes have now been counted, according to state news agency Anadolu’s vote tracker. (Note that these are not official results. In past elections, Anadolu has been accused of favouring Erdoğan and his AKP party.)
Vote shares stand at 54.6% for Erdoğan and 39.4% for Kılıçdaroğlu, with Oğan on 5.5%. Again, many of Kılıçdaroğlu’s votes are not expected to be reported until much later in the evening, while results from small rural polling stations that are mostly pro- Erdoğan tend to get counted first.
Updated
As expected, Erdoğan leads in early results
With just under 10% of votes counted, Turkey’s state Anadolu Agency reports that the incumbent president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, holds an early lead with 59.5%.
His arch-rival for the presidency, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, is on 34.8%, while the third candidate, nationalist Sinan Oğan, has just over 5% of votes counted so far.
Analysts have said that Kılıçdaroğlu, who has relatively high levels of support in some of Turkey’s biggest cities, is likely to trail in early results but should pull back as more results come in.
Updated
Opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has asked election officials on Twitter not to leave the ballot boxes until the last vote was delivered.
Demokrasi kahramanlarımıza seslenmek istiyorum. İmzalı son sandık tutanağı teslim edilene kadar, ne olursa olsun asla sandıkların başından ayrılmayın. Millet iradesinin tam ve doğru biçimde tecelli etmesi sizin kararlılığınıza bağlı. Göreceksiniz, yorgunluğunuza değecek. 🫶🏼
— Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu (@kilicdarogluk) May 14, 2023
“I want to call out to our heroes of democracy. Never leave the ballot boxes, no matter what, until the last signed ballot box report is delivered,” he said.
“The full and correct manifestation of the will of the people depends on your determination. You will see, it will be worth your tiredness.”
Results reporting ban lifted; early lead for Erdoğan expected
As of 6.30pm local time, Turkey’s supreme election board has lifted its ban on the reporting of election results – originally in place until 9pm.
Results should now start trickling in, more than two hours before they were initially expected.
The picture is is likely to remain unclear for some hours yet, however. That’s essentially because results from Erdoğan’s rural and conservative heartland tend to be declared early, while Kılıçdaroğlu’s strong urban support comes through later.
Analysts have said they expect an initial lead for Erdoğan that should be clawed back by Kılıçdaroğlu in the course of the evening.
Updated
The election campaign has been dominated by the state of Turkey’s economy and the country’s cost of living crisis, as well as the massive damage caused by February’s earthquakes.
Even before the earthquakes Turkey’s economy was in trouble: economists say Erdoğan’s unorthodox insistence on keeping interest rates low has sent inflation soaring – to 85% last year – while the Turkish lira has lost about 80% of its value against the dollar in the past five five years.
Soaring food prices and rents have been among voters’ biggest concerns throughout the campaign. Interest rates are usually hiked to cool inflation, but Erdoğan has denounced them as “the mother and father of all evil”.
The opposition has also successfully attacked alleged government mismanagement of the rescue operation after the earhquakes, which killed more than 50,000 people and displaced millions more.
The slow pace of reconstruction, as well as accusations of a failure to enforce building codes owing to widespread corruption, are also believed to have hit Erdoğan’s suport, particularly in the hard-hit, traditionally pro-AKP east and south-east of the country.
Updated
Deniz Barış Narlı in Istanbul writes in with some news on turnout, which could prove crucial to the election’s outcome:
Election turnout is expected to be high in this pivotal election. Turkey has a fairly high turnout rate generally: it was around 86% in the previous presidential elections in 2018.
“We are expecting a record turnout in Istanbul, and there are also reports that this is the same across Turkey,” said Canan Kaftancıoğlu, the Istanbul chair of Kılıçdaroğlu’s CHP party.
Istanbul is Turkey’s biggest city and turnout here may be decisive for the election results as the race is expected to go down to the wire.
“Except for one or two individual cases, I would say that our citizens completed the voting process without any trouble or problem,” Kaftancıoğlu said.
She also invited voters to go to polling stations to observe the vote-counting process, regardless of the party they voted for.
Voting was also being monitored by a mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is due to deliver a preliminary statement on its findings on Monday.
Updated
The news portal Haberler has posted an amusing video clip of two voters waiting patiently to cast their ballots in Istanbul who suddenly realise their president is standing in the queue right behind them:
Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan'ı arkasında gören seçmen şaşırdı. pic.twitter.com/QymY2oEax9
— Haberler.com (@Haberler) May 14, 2023
Updated
Reuters has pulled together the views of a range of Turkish voters from around the country as they cast their votes on Sunday:
In Istanbul, Hasibe, 40, a school employee:
Erdoğan gave us everything. He made many lovely things happen. I don’t know what else he can give us but I want him to continue. We’ve been worn about by the excitement all week. I don’t think it will go to a runoff.
Ahmet Kalkan, retired health worker, 64:
I see these elections as a choice between democracy and dictatorship. I chose democracy and I hope that my country chooses democracy. I have hope that Kılıçdaroğlu will win.
Kubra, 36, telecommunications sector worker:
I have voted many times but I feel so excited for the first time. I voted for Kılıçdaroğlu and the Nation Alliance. I want development and change in education, law, democracy and human rights.
Gungor Yucel, 80:
My ideas have changed since the last election. We feel insulted now. We are tired of the constant sayings and empty words. Of course, there are good things Erdoğan did, but lately, they started to look down on and insult the nation.
In the southern city of Antakya, devastated by February’s earthquake, Ozgur Kayabolen:
We don’t like this government, especially this president. When the earthquake happened, they leave here the people for dead, nobody come here for four days.
In Diyarbakir, in the mainly Kurdish southeast, Nuri Can, 26:
I voted for the Green Left Party and Kılıçdaroğlu because the economic crisis is making it difficult for us. A change is needed for the country. After the election there will be an economic crisis at the door again, so I wanted change.
Hayati Arslan, 51:
I voted for the AK Party and Erdoğan. The country’s economic situation is not good but I still believe that Erdoğan will fix this situation. Turkey’s prestige abroad has reached a very good point with Erdoğan and I want this to continue.
The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has tweeted to his supporters after polling stations closed:
Değerli dava ve yol arkadaşlarım...
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) May 14, 2023
Oy verme işlemi ülkemiz genelinde, hamdolsun, demokrasimize yakışır bir şekilde tamamlandı. Şimdi, her zaman olduğu gibi sandıklara sıkı sıkıya sahip çıkma vakti. Sonuçlar kesinleşinceye kadar milletimizin iradesini korumaya devam!..
“The voting process has been completed throughout the country in a way that befits our democracy,” the outgoing president said.
“Now, as always, it is time to firmly protect the ballot boxes. Until results are finalised, we continue to protect the will of our nation.”
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Emre Peker, an analyst at EurasiaGroup, has an interesting thread on Twitter here on what the election is ultimately about and how it could play out:
Ultimately, this is an election battle between continuity and change, with the economy the biggest driver. Erdogan is desperately trying to move the debate to issues such as terrorism/national security and family values, while trying to project a strong-world-leader image.
But given the scale of economic problems, he is not having much luck—therefore resorting to handouts to woo voters.Kilicdaroglu is doubling down on sound economic management, democracy, justice, rule of law, and freedoms.
His coalition is performing well on the campaign, outshining Erdogan with painting a pretty picture for the future, compared to Erdogan’s reliance on past accomplishments.
Peker suggests neither Erdoğan nor Kılıçdaroğlu may be able to decisively push past the 50% threshold to avoid a runoff — but he reckons a surprise win is within reach all the same. “The vote will be a knife-edge,” he said.
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Today’s election matters far beyond the borders of Turkey. Under Erdoğan, the country has flexed is military muscle in the Middle East and beyond, launching incursions into Syria, waging an offensive against Kurdish militants inside Iraq and sending military support to Libya and Azerbaijan.
It has also clashed diplomatically with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Israel, rowed with Greece and Cyprus over maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean, and been subjected to US arms industry sanctions after buying Russian air defences.
Erdoğan’s closeness to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has led critics to question Turkey’s commitment to its fellow Nato members, which Ankara’s recent reluctance to endorse Sweden and Finland’s membership applications has only reinforced.
Turkey also, however, brokered a deal for Ukrainian wheat exports – underlining its potential role in ending the war. For the EU, defeat for Erdoğan would be strategically welcome but politically tricky, since it might relaunch Turkey’s accession bid.
Here are some agency photographs of today’s voting in Turkey
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Polls close
It is now 5pm in Turkey and voting has ended in both the country’s parliamentary and presidential elections.
Under Turkish law, reporting of any results is banned until 9pm local time.
By later this evening we should have a good indication of whether either presidential candidate has cleared the 50% bar necessary to avoid a runoff in a fortnight’s time.
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Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, 74, has headed the main opposition Republican People’s party (CHP) since 2010 and was named the six-party opposition alliance’s presidential candidate in March.
Long stuck in Erdoğan’s shadow, the bookish former civil servant, from a historically repressed Kurdish group, has lost half a dozen national elections to Erdoğan while leading his secular party.
He entered parliament in 2002 with the CHP, which was established by modern Turkey’s founder Ataturk, and – although he has led the CHP to major victories in big-city municipalities including Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir – has struggled to reach beyond its secularist grassroots to attract conservative voters.
The candidate of the Nation Alliance or Table of Six has been criticised as lacking charisma, and for blocking politicians from his own party – such as high-profile mayors – who may have stood a better chance of victory.
During this campaign, however, Kılıçdaroğlu has struck a more inclusive note, seeking to draw in voters disillusioned by Erdoğan’s rhetoric and perceived economic mismanagement. He has promised economic prosperity, and greater respect for human rights and the rule of law.
His frank kitchen chats with voters have belatedly turned him into something of a social media star. He has also promised to retire after stripping the presidency of Erdoğan’s powers and then “go and spend more time with my grandchildren”.
Kılıçdaroğlu’s promise to “bring spring … and serenity to this land” has attracted younger voters as well as a broad cross-section of Turks exhausted by the outgoing president’s culture wars and harsh, polarising rhetoric.
He has also pledged to release many of the popular figures jailed by Erdoğan’s government in the wake of a failed but bloody 2016 coup attempt as part of his objective of ending what he has called the president’s “one-man regime”.
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The country’s most powerful leader since Atatürk, who founded modern Turkey a century ago, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a devout 69-year-old, has steered Turkey steadily away from secularism, glorifying its Islamic past - and embracing chaos on the way.
He rose to power 20 years ago as prime minister while Turkey was emerging from a period of rampant inflation, promising sound government, and became president in 2014. At the height of his success, Turkey enjoyed a protracted economic boom.
But economists blame Erdoğan for the country’s current economic crisis, saying his insistence on low interest rates has sent inflation soaring – to 85% last year – and caused the Turkish lira to lose 80% of its value against the dollar in five years.
Erdoğan has logged more than a dozen election victories and survived an attempted coup in 2016, shaping the country to his vision of a pious, conservative society and assertive regional player. In 2018 he abolished its parliamentary system, centralising power in an executive presidency.
From his 1,000-room palace outside Ankara, Erdoğan in effect dictates government policy and, critics say, has eroded democracy, stifling dissent and bringing media and judges under his sway. His supporters argue he has saved the country from serious security threats.
Abroad, Turkey under Erdoğan has flexed its military muscle in the Middle East and beyond, launching offensives in Syria and squabbling incessantly with Greece. His interventions in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh swung the outcomes of complex great-power conflicts.
His courtship of Russia has upset Washington, and his sale of weapons to Ukraine has irritated the Kremlin. But he has always seemed to know how to play one off the other so as to appear like the consummate statesman to his domestic audience.
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Ruth Michaelson and Deniz Barış Narlı are in Istanbul for the Guardian. Ruth has just sent this early dispatch on the atmosphere as Turks went to the polls:
The mood at some of the polling stations in Istanbul was sharply divided, with AKP voters stating they were determined to re-elect Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and rebuffing concerns about the economy or the risk he could lose.
Many mentioned a need for the country to remain united despite the deep political polarisation that has overtaken Turkey throughout the past decade and fears that Erdoğan or his Justice and Development party (AKP) could demand people take to the streets if they lose, or if the vote is close.
“We will do what justice and fairness require,” said 51-year-old Veysel Isinal, asked if he would take to the streets if the AKP demanded it. “I believe the president will win re-election – if he doesn’t that would be bad for the country.”
Younger voters, however, were determined to vote for anyone other than Erdoğan or the AKP. A group in their mid-20s standing in the middle of Erdoğan’s home district in Istanbul, where he campaigned just yesterday, said gen Z would be the generation to end his 20-year reign.
Kurdish voters, courted by the opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, were jubilant about the prospect of ending Erdoğan’s reign. “This time he’s going,” one said, laughing happily with several friends who had turned out to vote.
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The basics: who is standing, and how do the votes work
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and his Justice and Development party (AKP) face their greatest political challenge yet.
Amid an economic crisis, and months after earthquakes killed more than 50,000 people and displaced millions more, today’s elections – presidential and parliamentary – will decide who leads the country where it heads next.
Erdoğan has championed religious and conservative social values at home, while asserting Turkey’s influence in the region and loosening its ties with the west.
Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the secularist Republican People’s party (CHP), is standing for the six-party Nation Alliance. He has pledged to prioritise justice, corruption and education.
In the presidential election, any candidate who wins more than 50% of votes in the first round is elected president. If no one secures a majority, the election goes to a runoff – due on 28 May – between the two leading candidates.
In the parliamentary elections, the number of seats a party wins in the 600-member parliament is directly proportional to the number of votes it receives, providing it gets – alone or as part of an alliance – at least 7% of the national vote.
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The year's most important election?
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of what many of the world’s media and pundits have had no hesitation in describing as the most significant election of 2023.
It’s easy to see why: Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, leader for the past 20 years of a country of global economic and strategic importance, could be on the way out.
Polls increasingly show Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the unity candidate for six opposition parties, with a narrow lead over Erdoğan – possibly scoring above the 50% needed to win outright.
Over two decades, an increasingly authoritarian Erdoğan has taken control of many of Turkey’s institutions – including much of the media and judiciary – steadily sidelining his opponents.
Kılıçdaroğlu aims to reverse many of those policies, including Erdoğan’s all-powerful executive presidency, return power to parliament, slash inflation and improve relations with the west.
The stakes are high: Turkey, a country of 85 million people at the crossroads between Asia, Europe and the Middle East, could continue its democratic slide, or reverse the damage.
We’ll be bringing you all the latest news as it happens: polls close an hour from now, at 5pm local time (2pm GMT), and we could have an early indication of the result by 9pm local time.
