Announced as worn out and losing after 20 years in power, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 69, emerges stronger from Sunday’s test ballot and leaves in a position of strength for the second round of the presidential election, which will be organized on May 28.
The “reis” Erdoğan also retains his majority in Parliament.
The latest count, which grants 49.5% of the vote to the Head of State against 45% to his social-democratic rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leaves no doubt about the holding of this new electoral appointment, confirmed Monday after- noon by the electoral commission.
The outcome of the second round looks more than uncertain for the opposition, despite their repeated confidence in their victory. It will partly depend on a third man, the ultranationalist Sinan Oğan, who won 5.2% of the vote in the first round and has not yet announced whether he will support one of the two candidates.
The impact of the economic crisis and the devastating earthquake of February 6, which claimed at least 50,000 lives, did not have the effects envisaged by analysts. The government’s response, deemed late, had nevertheless aroused the anger of many survivors. But this feeling was not reflected at the polls, the heavily impacted provinces having massively renewed their confidence in the president, who promised to rebuild 650,000 homes as soon as possible in the affected areas.
“The Nation places its trust in Erdoğan”, headlined the pro-government daily on Monday. Sabahdescribing the arrival at the head of the outgoing president in the first round of “tremendous success”.
“Respect” the vote
Until Sunday, the opposition camp, a vast coalition led by the CHP (social democrat, secular) – the party of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey – called for “to end in the first round”. But the vice-president of the party acknowledged at midday Monday that the “some 300 ballot boxes from abroad not counted will not change the situation”. “We will certainly win in the second round”, he however reaffirmed.
Despite attempts by the opposition to contest the results on Sunday evening, European observers from the Council of Europe and the OSCE judged that the elections had offered the Turks a real political choice. And this despite an “unjustified advantage” granted by the official media to President Erdoğan.
The two candidates said they were ready to meet again and both pledged to “respect” the verdict of the polls.
Faced with a ballot for the first time, when he was re-elected in 2018 in the first round of the presidential election, the head of state showed his confidence. “I sincerely believe that we will continue to serve our people for the next five years,” he said overnight to his exultant supporters.
The bet of stability
For Bayram Balci, researcher at CERI -Sciences Po in Paris and former director of the French Institute for Anatolian Studies in Istanbul, “the Turks played stability and security”. “They refused to place their trust in a motley coalition with diverging interests, wondering how they would manage to govern together. »
“Tayyip Erdoğan will win. He is a real leader, the Turks trust him and he has a vision for Turkey,” Hamdi Kurumahmut, an Istanbul resident working in tourism, told AFP on Monday.
The main index of the Istanbul Stock Exchange showed a plunge of 6% on Monday. The Turkish lira for its part reached a historically low level, around 19.7 pounds to the dollar.
“The outcome of the elections will be decisive for the Turkish economy,” worried analyst Bartosz Sawicki. “Will Turkey continue its heterodox momentum, its unbalanced policies or return to the path of reform and recovery? he wondered.