(Ankara) An unprecedented second round seems to be looming on Sunday evening in Turkey, suspended on the results of the counting of the presidential election, which gives President Recep Tayyip Erdogan neck and neck with his opponent Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.
The 69-year-old head of state, in power for 20 years, lost the lead credited to him by the official media over his social-democratic rival in the evening, dropping below 50%, according to the state agency Anadolu. .
Even if these figures are still likely to evolve, for the third man of this election, Sinon Ogan, dissident of the nationalist party MHP credited with approximately 5% of the votes, these results open the way to a second round on May 28. This would be a first for the Turkish Republic, centenary this year.
“We are going to have 15 difficult days ahead of us in the event of a second round,” he warned, refusing to say which candidate he would support.
To be declared the winner, one of the two leading candidates must obtain a majority of 50% of the votes plus one.
Pending the final results, the two sides fought a battle of figures, enjoining their respective observers to stay on the counting places “until the end”.
“We are in the lead,” said Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.
One of his right-hand men, the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, called on “citizens not to take into account the figures given by Anadolu”.
Record participation rate
“We don’t believe Anadolu,” he said.
PHOTO ALI UNAL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, leader of the CHP, the party of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey, leads a united front of six parties from the nationalist right to the liberal center left.
In Istanbul, the megalopolis of 16 million inhabitants, the 20% of ballots that remained to be counted could help Mr. Kiliçdaroglu to reduce the gap.
In Diyarbakir, the large city with a Kurdish majority in the south-east of the country, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu obtained more than 71% of the votes on four-fifths of the ballots counted, according to Anadolu.
All day, the ballot boxes were filled with large mustard-colored envelopes deposited by voters who sometimes waited for several hours in front of the schools transformed into polling stations.
The participation rate, it seems close to 90%, has not been officially communicated.
At stake: the choice of the thirteenth president of the Turkish Republic, who is celebrating his first century, and the future of the head of state who hopes to remain in power after this election that the polls had predicted tight.
The winner must obtain a majority of 50% of the votes plus one, under penalty of a second round on May 28 – the symbolic anniversary date of the greatest popular protest movement which shook power in 2003.
The 64 million voters also had to choose the 600 deputies who will sit in the unicameral parliament in Ankara.
In 2018, during the last presidential election, the head of state won in the first round with more than 52.5% of the vote. A waiver would already be a setback for him.
“Do not divide Turkey”
Voters are mainly divided between a vote in favor of the Islamo-conservative President Erdogan, 69, and for Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, at the head of the CHP, the secular party of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of modern Turkey.
PHOTO EMRAH GUREL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
“I say ‘continue’ with Erdogan”, implores Nurcan Soyer, on the contrary, with a scarf on his head, in front of Erdogan’s polling station.
In the bruised city of Antakya, the former Antioch (south) ruined by the earthquake, Mehmet Topaloglu arrived among the first: “We need change, that’s enough”. The wounds remain alive three months after the tragedy.
Mr Kiliçdaroglu is leading a united front of six parties from the nationalist right to the liberal centre-left. He also received the support of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, the third political force in the country.
Mr. Erdogan appears this time before a country worn down by an economic crisis, with a currency devalued by half in two years and inflation that exceeded 85% in the fall.
Facing him, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu played the appeasement card, promising the restoration of the rule of law and respect for institutions, battered over the past 10 years by Mr. Erdogan’s autocratic drift.