2023-05-14 20:40:01
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, given the lead by the official media at the start of the evening on May 14, fell below 50% following counting almost all of the ballots, according to the state agency Anadolu.
At 11:00 p.m. local time (10:00 p.m. Belgian time), the Head of State won 49.94% of the votes on nearly 90% of the ballots counted, according to Anadolu, opening the prospect of a second round on May 28. His rival and opposition leader, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, would have won 44.3% of the vote. The ultranationalist Sinan Ogan, third candidate in this election, is at 5.3%.
A few minutes earlier, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, however, urged the opposition to avoid drawing conclusions “hasty“while a count”democratic” votes is in progress. Any premature evaluation would amount to “want“the will of the nation,” he wrote on Twitter, in response to remarks from the opposition saying they were ahead in the first counts. He thanked his supporters and asked election officials not to not leave the polling stations before having obtained a definitive result.
Opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroglu also asked officials to stay at their posts and told supporters to prepare for a long night. “My people, we won’t sleep tonight“, he thus declared on Twitter. He accused the state news agency Anadolu of “conspiracyto manipulate the data. This, which gave initial results with President Erdogan around 60% of the vote, has now reduced the figure to less than 50%, he noted.
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