{"id":33542,"date":"2023-05-15T21:27:33","date_gmt":"2023-05-15T21:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=33542"},"modified":"2023-05-15T21:27:49","modified_gmt":"2023-05-15T21:27:49","slug":"turkey-election-goes-to-runoff-after-erdogan-takes-first-round-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/05\/15\/turkey-election-goes-to-runoff-after-erdogan-takes-first-round-lead\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkey election goes to runoff after Erdo\u011fan takes first-round lead"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Turkey\u2019s presidential election is going to a runoff after\u00a0Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u00a0comfortably outperformed his chief rival, Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, but just failed to clear the 50% vote threshold needed to avoid a second round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 69-year-old conservative incumbent confounded pollsters\u2019 predictions and his secular rival to win the first round of the country\u2019s pivotal election, scoring 49.51% against K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s 44.88%, with a small number of overseas votes left to count. The runoff will take place on 28 May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Polls and observers had predicted an advantage if not an outright victory for K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, 74, but as the final results from Sunday\u2019s election were announced it became clear Erdo\u011fan had defied expectations, seizing a majority \u2013 along with his nationalist coalition partners \u2013 in parliament and forcing a second-round vote in the presidential race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the opposition scrambled to process what for them was a long and difficult evening in which they repeatedly claimed to be in the lead, the six-party coalition that had banded together in the hope of defeating Erdo\u011fan appeared ready to fracture as they attempted to regain momentum before the runoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu in particular was under pressure to adapt quickly to a nationalist groundswell of support signalling a further rightward shift in Turkey\u2019s politics, which granted the ultranationalist presidential candidate Sinan O\u011fan 5% of the overall vote and empowered far-right parties in parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kemal
Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu makes a statement to the press.Photograph: Dia\/Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A voting observation mission by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said political participation was high and voters had a choice between true political alternatives, \u201cbut the incumbent president and the ruling parties enjoyed an unjustified advantage, including through biased media coverage\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They added: \u201cThe campaign itself was competitive and largely free for most contestants but characterised by intense polarisation, and marred by harsh rhetoric, instances of misuse of administrative resources, and the pressure and intimidation faced by one opposition party.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu tried to appear defiant, releasing a short video that showed him passionately banging on a table and declaring \u201cHere I am! Here I am! You\u2019re here too. I swear to God I will fight till the end. Here I am!\u201d Investors appeared less convinced, with the main Turkish stock exchange index down 2.5% after initially falling more than 6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition had expected to benefit from voter anger at Turkey\u2019s economic crisis, after Erdo\u011fan\u2019s unorthodox policy of low interest rates sent the lira plunging and inflation soaring to\u00a0hit 85% last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\u00a0slow government response to earthquakes\u00a0that killed 50,000 people across Turkey and Syria in February had also been expected to sway voters. But Erdo\u011fan successfully rallied conservative support and is thought likely to extend his rule into a third decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe president is likely to ride his strong approval rating, surprise win in parliament, and incumbency advantages to secure re-election,\u201d said Emre Peker, of the Eurasia Group consultancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main opposition Republican People\u2019s party (CHP) attempted to save face despite unexpectedly falling behind in both the parliamentary and presidential votes. \u201cThe elections held yesterday showed that Erdo\u011fan could not get a vote of confidence from our nation,\u201d said a CHP spokesperson, Faik \u00d6ztrak. \u201cFor the next 15 days, we will do everything to bring rights, law and justice to this country. The will of our nation is above everything else. We will definitely win in the second round. [Our] alliance will take the lead. We will win. The winner will be democracy, the winner will be Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid questions about why K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu and his coalition did not manage to secure a majority in parliament or successfully capitalise on voters\u2019 criticisms of Erdo\u011fan, observers noted a rightward shift in Turkish politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring the campaign period there was a lot of speculation about an opposition undercurrent that might push K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu above the 50% mark in the first round. We now know that the colour of this undercurrent was conservative and nationalist. Very few opinion polls had captured that,\u201d said Berkay Mand\u0131rac\u0131, of the International Crisis Group.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u011fan, an ultranationalist who ostensibly ran as a spoiler candidate to promote his fiercely anti-refugee policies despite K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu also pledging to deport Syrian and Afghan refugees, was triumphant after the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe said the same thing from day one \u2026 Turkish nationalists will be the determinant of this election, the elections will go to the second round,\u201d he told Turkey\u2019s Fox TV. He added: \u201cWe are little short of our expectations. Our expectation was at least 11-12% [of the vote.] But if we were not in the election, President Erdo\u011fan would be giving a balcony speech right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u011fan\u2019s voters were left weighing up what to do in the second round of voting. Mert, 29, who defined himself as \u201ca nationalist but not racist,\u201d while boxing up cakes in a bakery in Erdo\u011fan\u2019s home district of Kas\u0131mpa\u015fa, said he was unconvinced by both Erdo\u011fan and K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cErdo\u011fan let in refugees,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the biggest problem with K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu is that he stands with the HDP [the majority Kurdish Peoples\u2019 Democratic party, whose leader Selahattin Demirta\u015f backed K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu from prison].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s unusual outreach to leftwing Kurdish voters as part of a broad alliance vying to defeat Erdo\u011fan after two decades in office saw him given a warm welcome in majority-Kurdish towns in eastern Turkey, and bolstered his vote in the presidential election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo secure a victory in the runoff, K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu will need to find a way to appeal to ultranationalist voters while at the same time maintaining his support among HDP-supporting Kurds. This is no easy stretch,\u201d said Mand\u0131rac\u0131.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

O\u011fan\u00a0told Reuters\u00a0on Monday that he would only consider backing K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu if no concessions were made to the HDP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics of K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu also quickly came to the fore, loudly suggesting that he should resign as leader before the second round. \u201cHe should resign today. He says that Erdo\u011fan lost votes. We are the losers. He should immediately resign from the CHP presidency,\u201d said Mehmet Sevigen, a former CHP official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members of K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu\u2019s six-party opposition coalition largely fell silent the day after the vote as they struggled to regroup, contemplating the challenge of motivating their supporters to turn out a second time amid the heavy setback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday a deep sense of defeat and disappointment prevails among opposition voters. Mobilising them again will be a challenge for K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu and his alliance partners,\u201d Mand\u0131rac\u0131 said. \u201cFor now at least, the momentum appears to be in Erdo\u011fan\u2019s favour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkey\u2019s presidential election is going to a runoff after\u00a0Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u00a0comfortably outperformed his chief rival, Kemal K\u0131l\u0131\u00e7daro\u011flu, but just failed to clear the 50% vote threshold needed to avoid a second round. The 69-year-old conservative incumbent confounded pollsters\u2019 predictions and his secular rival to win the first round of the country\u2019s pivotal election, scoring 49.51% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[6728,9306,11161,5810,10387,12758,10000,9088,8440,12326,11606,913,2825,7280,911,6621,9127,1445,2264,6546,10954,10419,9515,8145,10342,3874,10634,11743,11973,1198,5424,7574,3805,11377,1776,8306,6200,12938,10214,6134,5524,6944,8297,13301,5655,10041,6327,8840,6264,3349,2570,3151,10885,8033,3954,594],"class_list":["post-33542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-alliance","tag-appeal","tag-bakery","tag-boxing","tag-campaign","tag-captured","tag-conservative","tag-container","tag-crisis","tag-decade","tag-democracy","tag-democratic","tag-democratic-party","tag-earthquake","tag-election","tag-europe","tag-february","tag-god","tag-government","tag-inflation","tag-international","tag-justice","tag-killed","tag-kurdish","tag-law","tag-lead","tag-lost","tag-majority","tag-one","tag-parliament","tag-politics","tag-presidency","tag-president","tag-presidential","tag-presidential-election","tag-prison","tag-race","tag-racist","tag-rates","tag-refugee","tag-refugees","tag-republican","tag-resign","tag-results","tag-security","tag-speech","tag-stock","tag-strong","tag-survivors","tag-syria","tag-turkey","tag-turkeys-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-victory","tag-video","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}