2023-05-15 09:53:00
AWhen the Turkish president stepped in front of his supporters at quarter to two in the morning, he kept a back door open. “We believe that we will end this round with more than 50 percent.” But if the nation decides on a runoff election, that would be just as welcome, said Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the balcony of the AKP party headquarters in Ankara.
Shortly thereafter, his challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu appeared before the press with his allies. “Elections cannot be won on the balcony,” he railed. “We will win this election in the second round.”
In fact, the day after the vote, everything points to a runoff. According to the High Electoral Council, after counting 99 percent of the ballot boxes, Erdogan was at 49.4 percent. Kilicdaroglu came to almost 45 percent. In the meantime, the opposition had accused the government camp of deliberately slowing down the count in numerous polling stations through objections. As an example, Kilicdaroglu cited a polling station that had been counted eleven times. Claims by the opposition during election night that the numbers showed their candidate a clear lead have not been confirmed.
Both camps are confident of victory
If there is a runoff election in two weeks, the incumbent will probably have a head start. His alliance achieved an absolute majority in parliament: 322 of the 600 seats. That could persuade many voters in the second round of the presidential election to vote for stable conditions instead of voting for a candidate who would not have his own majority in parliament.
However, the AKP indicated that it reserves the right to contest the results before the objection period expires on Tuesday afternoon. So some uncertainty remains. The country is expected to face a restless two weeks. Both camps were confident of victory. The fact that there is no winner according to the preliminary figures has to do with the third candidate. The ultra-nationalist Sinan Ogan got more than five percent of the vote. His voters are considered protest voters. However, it is uncertain whether they would choose the challenger in a runoff.
On the night of the election, the opposition accused the state news agency Anadolu of publishing the results from AKP strongholds first in order to present the president as the winner at an early stage and to demoralize the opposition’s election observers. “The fiction that started at 60 percent has now fallen below 50 percent,” Kilicdaroglu said on the night.
In fact, the large lead that Anadolu attributed to the president continued to shrink as election night progressed, slipping below the crucial 50 percent mark just before midnight. The opposition repeatedly called on its election observers not to take their eyes off the ballot boxes despite the late hour.
The official figures of the High Electoral Council were not published until later. The difference to the state news agency can be explained by different accesses to the same data. In each individual polling station, the parties’ election observers publish the respective results, which Anadolu and other media can access. However, the electoral council only feeds the results into its database when they have been communicated from the local level to the national level via several bodies. This system is designed to help prevent voter fraud. On election night, it often skews the results.
Both sides praise high turnout
The ruling party accused the opposition camp of disrupting the integrity of the election process with its criticism of the state news agency and the AKP’s objections in individual polling stations. Erdogan presented himself as a model democrat and accused his opponents of undemocratic methods. “Our country held a festival of democracy on May 14,” he said on the balcony of his party headquarters. Even before that, he had accused the opposition of “seizing the will of the nation” by prematurely publishing its own data.
Both camps praised the high turnout of more than 87 percent. Erdogan spoke of “one of the highest in our history”. There was confusion about the President’s whereabouts overnight. In the early evening, Anadolu reported that Erdogan had flown from Istanbul to Ankara to spend election night there. This later turned out to be a hoax. In the late evening, Erdogan showed up with supporters in Istanbul. It was only after midnight that he flew to the capital, Ankara, to give his traditional election evening speech from the balcony of party headquarters. Several media reported, citing government circles, that the confusion was a security measure.
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