After a second round of voting, it is now clear that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won a narrow victory over his rival Kemal Kiliçdaroglu and will remain the President of Turkey.
It was clear in mid-May that neither sitting President Erdogan nor opposition leader Kiliçdaroglu won the election. With around 99.5% of the votes counted, Erdogan had a 49.5% lead, Kiliçdaroglu had achieved 44.89%, while the third candidate, Sinan Ogan, only received around 5% of the votes. In Turkey, since more than 50% of the vote is required to win, the election went to a second round.
The second round was held on Sunday and confirmed that Erdogan remains in power in Turkey, reports Al Jazeera. He won 52.1% of the vote while Kiliçdaroglu won 47.9%.
– How can it be possible not to love this nation? Erdogan asks his supporters after the election.
– My real sadness is about the difficulties awaiting the country, complained Kiliçdaroglu.
In the last election in 2018, Erdogan received 52.6% of the vote, which means he has lost about 0.5% since then. However, he did not have to go into a second round of voting, but won in the first round against five other candidates.
Erdogan is the founder of the Justice and Development Party and is usually described as a more nationally conservative politician. By contrast, Kiliçdaroglu is a social democrat in the Republican People’s Party of the founder of the Turkish Republic, Atatürk, which is the oldest party in the country. If the opposition leader’s party had won, Sweden could have expected Turkey to approve the still rejected NATO membership application. However, Erdogan is expected to continue to deny the country membership of the US military alliance.
