Neither Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan nor his rival, opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, secured more than 50% of vote in closely fought national poll.
Supreme Election Council head Ahmet Yener yesterday said Turkey will hold a runoff on May 28, as none of the presidential hopefuls collected more than 50% of the vote in May 14 elections. Whoever of the two remaining contenders - Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu, who is the Republican People’s Party leader - will muster most votes will become president.
Erdogan said today that he is expecting to win the presidential runoff on May 28. "The time has now come to crown the success we achieved on May 14 by securing an even bigger victory," he said.
First round results
The incumbent president received 49.51% of the votes, and his main challenger Kılıçdaroğlu 44.88%. Sinan Oğan, who was nominated by the ATA Alliance party, collected 5.17% of the vote.
Earlier, Sinan Oğan said he will make up his mind in the next few days about whom of the remaining contenders he will support. “We have some preconditions,” Oğan said, singling out fighting terrorism and the return of Syrian and other refugees.
