It is hard not to be disappointed about the outcome of the first round of Turkey's presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday. In a campaign defined by the aftermath of February's huge earthquake, mounting economic problems and deepening corruption, hopes were high that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian 20-year rule would end. Some polls suggested that the six-party opposition led by the centre-left Kemal Kilicdaroglu, from the Republican People's Party (CHP), would be able to win a majority or, at the very least, enter the second round with an advantage over Mr Erdogan.
In the event, Turkey is going to the second round of voting on May 28 with Mr Erdogan, who received 49.5% of the vote, in a commanding lead. Mr Kilicdaroglu received less than 45% of the vote, and the remainder was captured by a far-right, anti-immigrant candidate, Sinan Ogan, who was to announce yesterday which of the two remaining candidates he would support. But it seems likely that a significant share of his supporters will back Mr Erdogan in the second round.
What went wrong was more fundamental than faulty polling. It is impossible to make sense of the results without recognising how nationalistic the electorate has become.
