President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won Turkey’s presidential election, defeating opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Sunday’s runoff vote.
“The head of Turkey’s Supreme Election Council has announced that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won a third term in office after defeating Kemal Kilicdaroglu in a runoff election.
Erdogan defeated his rival by a margin of around 2.2 million votes, according to figures released by the council.
Erdogan’s victory was all but assured for several hours by the time Yener spoke to the press, with a count by Turkey’s Anadolu Agency showing an unclosable gap between Erdogan and Kilcdaroglu within hours of polls closing earlier on Sunday evening.
By the time around 98% of ballots had been counted, Erdogan declared victory in a rally outside his Istanbul residence, in which he thanked ‘each and every member of the nation’ for taking part in the election.
The election was Turkey’s second in as many weeks, after Erdogan emerged on top during a first round of voting on May 14th, but failed to break the 50% threshold necessary to avoid a runoff. With third candidate Sinan Ogan eliminated, a second round was called for Sunday.
President since 2014 and prime minister for 11 years beforehand, Erdogan is a social conservative who has steered Turkey away from integration with the EU while strengthening his own powers and promoting moderate Islamist policies at home. He has developed close trade and diplomatic links with Russia and China while positioning himself as a potential peacemaker in regional conflicts, including in Ukraine.
Kilicdaroglu is a more liberal politician, who promised to mend Turkey’s strained ties with its NATO allies and restart EU accession talks.
While Kilicdaroglu has not yet formally conceded defeat, he told his supporters on Sunday that he was ‘saddened’ by the result of the election and would continue to fight for ‘real democracy’ in the future”. -RT
The announcement from the head of Turkey’s Supreme Election Council came after the Turkish president had already declared victory as congratulations poured in from world leaders, including both Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, whose countries are warring with one another at present.
President Putin stated that Erdogan’s favorable election results validate that the Turkish people sweepingly support the Kremlin in its efforts to “strengthen state sovereignty and pursue an independent foreign policy”.
Whereas President Zelenskyy, on the other hand, said he was looking forward to strengthening cooperation between Turkey and Ukraine “for the security and stability of Europe”.
In his celebratory speech, the Turkish leader asked rhetorically if the audience agreed that the factions in Kilicdaroglu’s six-party National Alliance bloc, such as the Republican People's Party (CHP), the Free Democratic Party (HDP), the Good Party (IYI), and “some little guys next to them” were all “LGBT” to the rousing cheers from the jubilant crowd.
Erdogan’s opposition Kilicdaroglu had promised to reinstate the Istanbul Convention if elected that was signed by forty-five countries plus the European Union and which Turkey withdrew from back in 2021, after alleging that the convention had been “hijacked by a group of people attempting to normalize homosexuality”.
Conversely, President Erdogan has proclaimed repeatedly that his ruling coalition will always fight to uphold traditional Turkish Muslim values while insisting that the “liberal ideology” from the West will not be permitted to “infiltrate” his governing party or its nationalist allies.