Erdogan declares victory after presidential election
Turkey’s Erdogan thanked the voters after the results showed him winning the runoff vote.
Both state and opposition affiliated media outlets showed him leading with 97% of the vote counted.
The state Anadolu news agency showed Erdogan at 52.1%, and his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, at 47.9%.
The ANKA news agency, close to the opposition, put Erdogan’s lead at 51.9%, with Kilicdaroglu garnering 48.1% of the vote.
Meanwhile, the country’s official electoral authority has tallied 54.6% of the votes so far, the agency’s chief Ahmet Yener said. Erdogan is leading with 54.47% of the votes, while Kiliçdaroglu has 45.53%, Yener added.
widens the gap
nearly 90% of ballots counted, unofficial results seem to be putting Erdogan ahead of his rival. The state Anadolu news agency showed Erdogan leading with 53%, while his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, came in at 47%.
news agency, which is closer to the opposition, had Erdogan leading by 51% to Kilicdaroglu’s at 49%.
electoral authority chief Ahmet Yener called for patience, as some 25% of the data has been entered so far. Yener urged people to wait for the final results.
Outcome unclear as agencies provide conflicting results
Incomplete count reported by the Anadolu state news agency shows President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the lead with 56.4% of the vote to rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s 43.6%, with nearly half of the ballots counted.
At the same time, private news agency ANKA showed a much tighter race, with Kilicdaroglu in the lead.
DW was not able to verify either of the counts.
Turkish news agencies gather their data from completed ballot box counts which come from personnel on the field.
The country’s electoral board sends its own data to political parties as the vote count unfolds, but it doesn’t declare official results until days later.
Opposition party reports attack on election observers
The deputy leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Ozgur Ozel, says that there has been an attack on the election observers at the polls.
Ozel said on Twitter that the CHP’s election observers in a village in the southeastern Turkish province of Sanliurfa were beaten and their phones were broken after they objected to voting irregularities. He said that CHP lawmaker Ali Seker was on the scene.
The CHP deputy leader urged authorities to ensure the security of the election.
The German Press Agency (dpa) said it could not independently verify the report.
Candidates cast ballots in runoff
The two candidates in Turkey’s second round of presidential elections have cast their ballots.
Incumbent president Erdogan noted that this was the first presidential runoff in Turkey’s history.
He said that he expected participation to remain high in the second round, urging voters to “turn out without complacency.”
“I pray to God, that it (the election) will be beneficial for our country and nation,” he said.
Meanwhile, opposition candidate Kilicdaroglu urged citizens to vote against Erdogan, calling his government an “authoritarian regime.”
“In order to get rid of this authoritarian regime… I invite all my citizens to cast their ballot,” Kilicdaroglu said after voting.
Results quicker in second round — electoral authority
The results in the second round of voting in Turkey’s presidential election should be available sooner than those of the first round were, according to electoral authority chief Ahmet Yener.
Yener said that the count could be expected to proceed faster due to the fact that only two candidates were involved.
The head of Turkey’s national electoral authority said that voting had occurred without incident.
After the first round of voting, preliminary final results were not announced until noon the following day.
Overall turnout in the first round was just over 87% of eligible voters.
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