Turkey elections live: runoff increasingly likely amid competing claims from Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu | Turkey

Ruth Michaelson

A bit more from Ruth Michaelson on the parliamentary elections happening alongside the presidential side of things.

Taking to the stage to claim victory in front of his supporters before all the votes had officially been counted, Erdoğan claimed his alliance had won a majority in the parliament.

Turkey’s election authority, the YSK, said that with 91.93% of votes reported in the presidential election, Erdoğan had secured 49.49% of the vote, while Kılıçdaroğlu had 44.79%. However, the authority has not publicly commented on the parliamentary election results.

Only Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu has reported parliamentary results, describing 96.39% of “ballot boxes opened”, which does not necessarily mean votes counted. The discrepancy between Anadolu’s percentage of the vote counted and the YSK’s throughout the evening has not been explained.

Anadolu is currently reporting that Erdoğan’s governing coalition has secured 49.38% of the overall vote, while the opposition coalition has 35.16%, with potentially another 10 percentage points if they were to add on votes from the Kurdish-majority Peoples’ Democratic party or HDP (which ran under the Green Left party) and other socialist parties.

The overall results in the parliamentary so far suggest a victory for a range of nationalist parties, but a surprise loss for the six-party opposition coalition (which includes one nationalist party), who had expected to clinch a majority.

Ruth Michaelson

Kılıçdaroğlu hit back at Erdoğan in what was a more subdued speech: “Despite all of his lies and attacks, Erdoğan did not receive the desired outcome. No one should be enthusiastic about this being a done deal. The election is not won on the balcony,” he said, referring to Erdoğan’s speech venue.

He added: “We will definitely, definitely win this election in the second round. Everyone will see it. Preliminary results show that Erdoğan did not receive the public confidence vote that he expected. The need for a change in society exceeds 50%. The AKP’s loss of votes demonstrates this too. The process of entering [election] data is ongoing. If the nation opts for a second round, it is more than welcome.”

Erdoğan’s main rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, has spoken, giving a competing version of how the vote is going. He has said that he will accept a run-off vote, referring to it as the people’s decision, and said he would win it.

Erdoğan had not obtained the result he wanted, he said.

Both the main rivals have now said they would accept a run-off vote if that is what was decided, though Erdoğan has said he believes he has the votes to win outright.

The results also reveal interesting trends in major Turkish cities. Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, has swung towards Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu but only just. The AKP has the most MPs from the city’s three regions which complicates the ‘he who rules Istanbul, rules Turkey maxim’ which has been reliable bellwether of how the country is leaning.

Turkey’s second-largest city, Ankara, also went for the opposition candidate and its third largest Izmir did too. Bursa, the country’s fourth largest city, and Konya, a traditional conservative strong-hold and the fifth largest were kept by the AKP-led People’s Alliance.

As with prior elections the AKP has been much stronger across Anatolia, than the CHP-led alliance Nation’s Alliance but the results do show that Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu managed to successful connect with the Kurdish populated south-east. According to Anadolu, in Tunceli he got 80% of the vote, 75% in the border region of Sirnak and 71% in Diyarbakir.

The head of Turkey’s election authority has said that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is leading Sunday’s presidential elections with 49.49%, with 91.93% of ballot boxes counted.

Ahmet Yener said Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Erdogan’s main rival, had 44.49% of votes.

The general trend in this election on the parliamentary level has been towards a diffusion of votes towards smaller and in some cases newer parties and away from Turkey’s larger parties like the CHP, but even more so away from the governing AKP. As it stands with over 95% of ballots opened according to state agency Anadolu, the AKP-led People’s Alliance has almost half of the parliament and constitutes a large majority but its share of the vote has shrunk substantially from prior legislative elections.

Here is some data taking us back to when the AKP first came to power in 2002:

2002 – 34.4%

2007 – 46.5%

2011 – 49.3%

2015 – 49.5%

2018 – 42.6%

2023 – 35.4%

This won’t surprise regular observers of Turkish politics. Soaring inflation has eaten away at the purchasing power of regular Turks, and as inflation has increased, the AKP’s popularity has declined also. That was clearest when another broad opposition alliance led by the CHP which Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu was the patient architect of took Istanbul, Izmir and Ankara in 2019 local elections.

Outright win is possible, Erdoğan says

Ruth Michaelson

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has just given a jubilant and energetic speech to his followers gathered outside his Justice and Development party (AKP) headquarters in the capital, Ankara, where he strode out onto the stage singing one of his campaign songs, entitled “For those who hear, and for those who don’t hear.”

The speech appears to be an attempt to seize control of the narrative in a tightly contested vote where the opposition say many of their votes have yet to be included in the official tally. Turkey’s official elections authority the YSK said that 87.13% of the vote had been counted.

“We love you very much,” he told the crowd, appearing fired up in a way that has rarely been quite so apparent on the campaign trail. Erdoğan initially promised a more subdued election campaign following twin deadly earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people, but recently switched to staging regular rallies.

“Somebody is in the kitchen, we are on the balcony,” said Erdoğan, in a reference to his rival presidential candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s campaign videos filmed in his kitchen intended to portray his rival as down-to-earth.

He added: “Our country has completely a feast of democracy with these elections. Although the results are not clear yet we are in the lead by a long way. Both domestic and overseas voting results will take time to come in, but of course we are not like those who try to deceive the nation perhaps for the last time by creating a picture where they are far behind but saying they were ahead. We have always been honest to our nation, we know that we are far ahead in the election today, however we expect that the exact results will come.”

“We believe we can get above 50% in this round,” he said, indicating he now believes that an outright win might still be possible rather than a run-off in two weeks’ time.

• A run-off election is looking increasingly likely between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling AKP party and his opposition rival Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s CHP.

• Based on results so far, neither party appears likely to reach the 50% threshold to win outright. Any second round run-off would take place on 28 May.

• The Supreme Election Council (YSK) says 87% of the vote has been counted, but that there have been long delays in tallying up those that are being counted abroad.

• The state-owned Anadolu news agency has Erdoğan on 49.38% and Kılıçdaroğlu on 44.90% but there have been discrepancies between the data given out by state media and the YSK.

• Opposition figures Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and Sinan Oğan have voiced concern about the pace of the vote count. Kılıçdaroğlu said some counts were being blocked by repeated objections. “Do not block the will of this nation. I call out to our democracy workers on the field. Never leave the ballot boxes and election boards. We are here until every single vote is counted,” he tweeted.

• Oğan said he had heard of overseas votes being “manipulated”. “Vote counting is not done in a healthy environment. I warn the YSK [the Supreme Election Council]. Take the necessary measures immediately and ensure that the vote counting processes are carried out quickly. In addition, we will not allow a fait accompli with a manipulation of foreign votes.”

• The lira has fallen against the euro as investors voiced disappointment that Erdogan’s era of unconventional economics does not appear to be coming to an immediate end.

A spokesman for the Supreme Election Council in Turkey has just said 87.13% of votes have been counted, with long delays in tallying up those that are being counted abroad.

Ruth Michaelson

The official account of Erdoğan’s AKP party just tweeted that “the balcony is ready. The nation is waiting for its leader,” with a video of jubilant scenes of crowds outside their headquarters the capital Ankara. Here in Istanbul, there was a brief burst of what looked like celebratory fireworks just over the Bosphorus – although there is little to suggest from what we know of the count that Erdoğan’s side has reasons to claim outright victory in the presidential election.

The parliamentary results are also hanging in the balance, with the state news agency reporting that the AKP’s coalition could be on course to winning a majority, although it is unclear how many of the votes have been entered into the system of the supreme election council (YSK).