President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received congratulations from Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Palestine's Mahmoud Abbas, Azerbaijan's Haider Aliyev, Hungary's Viktor Orban and Bosnia's Bakir Izetbegovic, Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev late Sunday as the preliminary results suggested a victory for the incumbent president.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was the first head of state to call his Turkish counterpart after the results.

Shortly after, the Bosniak member of the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia Bakir Izetbegovic, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama also extended their congratulations.

Hungarian Prime Minister Vcitor Orban also became the first EU leader to call Erdoğan to congratulate him on his election success.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikolaos Kotzias and Guinea's Mamadi Toure also called Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu to congratulate him on AK Party's success in the elections.

With almost 80 percent of votes counted in Turkey's presidential elections, incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is predicted to emerge as the winner with a 54.4 percent lead.

Meanwhile, the newly formed Good Party's (İP) presidential candidate Meral Akşener gets 7.5 percent of the votes and the pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) candidate Selahattin Demirtaş has won 7.2 percent. </s> Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has claimed victory in Turkey’s presidential election, but the opposition called the announcement premature, as not all ballots had yet been counted.

“The Turkish public has mandated me as president according to unofficial results,” Erdoğan said on Sunday night. “I hope nobody will damage democracy by casting a shadow on this election and its results to hide their failure.”

The official Anadolu Agency reports that with 95.5% of votes counted, Erdoğan had won a 52.72% share of the national vote, while the opposition CHP party’s candidate, Muharrem İnce, was on 30.75%

The pro-Kurdish party, known as the HDP, won more than 10% of the vote, allowing them to enter parliament for a second consecutive term, diluting the majority of Erdoğan’s ruling party, the AKP, but falling short of the numbers needed to overturn that majority after a surprise showing by the AKP’s nationalist allies.

The results, if they stand, will be a disappointment to the opposition, which mounted a dynamic election campaign that hoped to push Erdoğan into a second-round run-off against İnce, and to wrest control of the legislature from the AKP. Erdoğan and his party have governed unopposed for 16 years.

President Erdoğan called early snap elections in April hoping to preempt worsening economic trends and to catch the opposition by surprise. He looked set to win easily in a presidential race and in parliament in alliance with the nationalists, projecting an image of a commander-in-chief fighting external enemies inside Turkey and across the border in Syria, and triumphant against terror groups.

But the opposition ran an energetic challenge to the status quo, with opposition presidential candidate İnce drawing crowds in the hundreds of thousands in rallies in the country’s largest cities of Istanbul, İzmir and Ankara, and criss-crossing the country on dozens of rallies.

The winner of the presidential race is set to assume extraordinary new powers narrowly approved in a referendum last year that was marred by allegations of fraud. These include complete control of the cabinet and the power to appoint senior judges and officials, including unelected vice-presidents. The president will also have the power to issue decrees with the force of law.

Those powers will allow the victor to transform Turkey’s political scene for years and possibly decades to come, governing until 2028 if they win re-election.

Opposition candidates had pledged to overturn the presidential system if they defeated Erdoğan, who nevertheless remained the favourite to win the race.

Opposition officials cried foul as soon as results began coming in, with the state-run Anadolu Agency announcing preliminary results more than two hours earlier than expected and opening with a massive lead for Erdoğan and his party’s alliance in parliament.

That lead closed over time, but it prompted accusations by the opposition that the state news agency was launching a manipulation operation to influence election monitors into leaving ballot counting stations early.

For much of the count, rival vote estimates by the opposition and the state-run agency were published, the former showing Erdoğan winning with less than 50 percent of the vote, and the latter showing a first-round outright victory.

The first result would lead to a second-round contest on 8 July, a possibility that would represent a major psychological blow for Erdoğan, even if he was tipped to win that contest as well.

The main secular opposition party, CHP, to whom İnce belongs, continued to contest the results well into the count, charging that less than 40% of ballot boxes had been opened, and that many of İnce’s strong electoral districts had not yet been counted.

İnce urged ballot count monitors to remain at their stations until the counts had been completed to protect against election fraud.

Nevertheless, Erdoğan appeared to be preparing for a “balcony” victory speech, and had already been congratulated on a win in the race by Hungary’s strongman leader, Viktor Orbán.

The election took place on an uneven playing field, against a backdrop of human rights abuses that Amnesty International described as a “climate of fear”.

One of the presidential candidates, Selahattin Demirtaş, ran his presidential campaign from a prison cell in Edirne where he is on trial on terrorism charges. The government has either shuttered, bought or taken over newspapers and TV stations, transforming the vast majority of the nation’s media into a loyalist press.

Thousands of people have been detained or dismissed since a coup attempt in 2016, a crackdown that has gone beyond the followers of Fethullah Gülen, the man accused of masterminding the coup from his exile in Pennsylvania, to dissidents of all stripes including academics, students who opposed military incursions into Syria, judges, bureaucrats and police and military officers.

Nevertheless, there were few incidents of apparent electoral fraud, with the exception of the province of Urfa, where some apparent attempts to rig the vote were uncovered during the course of the day. Poll stations opened at 8am and closed at 5pm. </s> Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared victory after receiving 52.6 percent of the votes with more than 96 percent of ballot boxes opened while the alliance led by his ruling AK Party securing the majority in the parliament.

Main opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) presidential candidate Muharrem Ince has so far received 30.8 percent of the votes.

 

 

 AK Party supporters head to Huber Mansion, Erdoğan's official residence in Istanbul, start to celebrate the election outcome as preliminary results suggest victory for the incumbent president

Meanwhile, the newly formed Good Party's (İP)' presidential candidate Meral Akşener gets 7.5 percent of the votes and the pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) candidate Selahattin Demirtaş has won 7.2 percent.

Temel Karamollaoğlu for the Felicity Party (SP) had 0.9 percent of the votes and Patriotic Party (VP) Chairman Doğu Perinçek managed to garner only 0.2 percent of the votes.

In a speech at the presidential mansion in Istanbul's Sarıyer district, Erdoğan claimed victory and thanked Turkish electorate for their support to himself and the Justice and Development Party(AK Party).

İnce said that he will make a statement after Turkey's Supreme Election Board (YSK) announces provisional results

In the parliamentary elections, the People's Alliance formed between the AK Party and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) received 55.8 percent of the votes with 72.1 percent of the total votes counted.

 

 

 Supporters of Turkish President Erdoğan hold Turkish and AK Party flags and greet after closing voting for the Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections in Ankara, Turkey, 24 June 2018

The National Alliance formed between the CHP, İP, and the SP collected 32.8 percent of the votes.

With the polls officially closed, electoral committees across the country's 81 provinces have started counting ballots.

Votes were cast in 180,065 polling places across the country.

Voting at Turkish customs gates with adjoining countries, which began on June 7, has also ended.

Votes by Turks living abroad who cast their ballots in 60 countries at 123 embassies and consulates will be counted at the same time in the capital Ankara. </s> The early results from the first round of Turkey's presidential elections showed incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan leads with 54 percent with 32.4 percent of the total votes counted.

Meanwhile, the pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) candidate Selahattin Demirtaş has won 7.2 percent and the newly formed Good Party's (İP) presidential candidate Meral Akşener gets 4.9 percent of the votes. </s> ISTANBUL >> Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared victory after unofficial election returns Sunday showed him with enough votes to serve another term that carries new executive powers.

“The nation has entrusted to me the responsibility of the presidency and the executive duty,” Erdogan said in televised remarks from Istanbul after a near-complete count carried by the state-run news agency gave him the majority needed to avoid a runoff.

The presidential election and a parliamentary election also held Sunday, both more than a year early, complete NATO-member Turkey’s transition from a parliamentary system of government to a strong presidential system. Voters approved the change in a referendum last year.

Erdogan, 64, insisted before the election that the expanded powers — which include the authority to impose states of emergency and to issue decrees — would bring prosperity and stability to Turkey, especially after a failed military coup attempt in 2016. A state of emergency has been in place since the coup.

The president’s critics, however, warned that Erdogan’s re-election would cement the grip on power of a leader who they accuse of showing increasingly autocratic tendencies.

Official results were to be declared by the country’s electoral board.

Results carried by the state-run Anadolu news agency with more than 96 percent of ballot boxes counted showed Erdogan winning an outright majority of 52.6 percent, far ahead of the 30.75 percent for his main contender, the secular Muharrem Ince.

Kurdish candidate Selahattin Demirtas, who ran his campaign from prison where he is being held pending trial on terrorism-related charges, was garnering 8.1 percent. He has called the charges trumped-up and politically motivated.

However, Ince said the results carried on Anadolu were not a true reflection of the official vote count by the country’s electoral board. In a tweet earlier in the evening, he said only 37 percent of ballot boxes had actually been counted, as opposed to the more than nearly 90 percent Anadolu was reporting at the time. He accused the agency of “manipulation” of the results.

Erdogan also declared victory for the People’s Alliance, an electoral coalition between his ruling Justice and Development Party and the small Nationalist Movement Party, saying they had a “parliamentary majority” in the 600-member assembly.

The unofficial results for the parliamentary election showed Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, losing its majority, with 293 seats in the 600-seat legislature. However, the small nationalist party the AKP was allied with garnered 49 seats.

“Even though we could not reach out goal in parliament, God willing we will be working to solve that with all our efforts in the People’s Alliance,” Erdogan told cheering supporters outside his official residence in Istanbul.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, was passing the 10 percent threshold required to enter parliament with 11.2 percent. Managing to get into parliament would be a significant for HDP, since nine of its lawmakers, including Demirtas, and thousands of party members were jailed during the campaign.

The party said more than 350 of its election workers have been detained since April 28.

Ince, speaking just after polls closed, warned civil servants involved in the vote count to do their jobs “abiding by the law” and without fear, suggesting they were under pressure by the government. He asked all Turks to be vigilant at polls and not be “demoralized” by what he called the possible manipulation of news.

Erdogan, who has been in power since 2003, had faced a more robust, united opposition than ever before. Opposition candidates had vowed to return Turkey to a parliamentary democracy with strong checks and balances and have decried what they call Erdogan’s “one-man rule.”

Erdogan is the most powerful leader since the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He remains popular in the conservative and pious heartland, having empowered previously disenfranchised groups.

From a modest background himself, he has presided over an infrastructure boom that has modernized Turkey and lifted many out of poverty while also raising Islam’s profile, for instance by lifting a ban on Islamic headscarves in schools and public offices.

But critics say he has become increasingly intolerant of dissent and opposition. The election campaign was heavily skewed in his favor, with opposition candidates struggling to get their speeches aired on television. Erdogan directly or indirectly controls most of Turkey’s media.

Ince, a 54-year-old former physics teacher, was backed by the center-left opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP. He wooed crowds with an unexpectedly engaging campaign, drawing massive numbers at his rallies in Turkey’s three main cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir.

More than 59 million Turkish citizens, including 3 million expatriates, were eligible to vote. Erdogan called the election more than a year early amid signs the country could be heading toward an economic downturn.

The head of Turkey’s electoral commission said authorities had taken action following reports of irregularities at voting stations in southeastern Turkey. Videos posted on social media appeared to show people voting in bulk at a ballot box in the town of Suruc in Sanliurfa province.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe was monitoring the elections with over 350 observers. Election monitors criticized Turkey for denying entry to two monitors who Turkey accused of political bias.

Peter Osusky, head of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly delegation, told The Associated Press all observers “are strongly adhering to so-called code of conduct” regardless of their political opinions.

Recent changes to electoral laws allow civil servants to lead ballot box committees. Ballot papers that don’t bear the official stamps will still be considered valid — a measure that led to allegations of fraud in last year’s referendum.

Citing security reasons, authorities have relocated thousands of polling stations in predominantly Kurdish provinces, forcing some 144,000 voters to travel further to cast their ballots. Some will even have to pass through security checkpoints to vote.

The vote took place under a state of emergency declared after the failed coup attempt, which allows the government to curtail civil rights. Some 50,000 people have been arrested and 110,000 civil servants have been fired under the emergency powers, which opposition lawmakers say Erdogan is using to stifle dissent. </s> President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said it is now time to focus on future of Turkey by leaving behind tensions of the election period following his victory in the presidential elections on Sunday.

"Our people have given us the job of carrying out the presidential and executive posts," he said in a short speech from Istanbul.

"I hope nobody will try to cast a shadow on the results and harm democracy in order to hide their own failure."

Erdoğan received the majority of the votes in all the ballot boxes where the presidential candidates cast their votes yesterday.

Unofficial results showed Erdoğan winning with 52.7 percent of the vote, with his closest opponent Muharrem Ince with 30.7 percent with 93 percent of votes counted.

His Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which has been in power since 2002, received approximately 42.5 percent of the vote to win its sixth consecutive general election. </s> Ekrem Imamoglu waves to his supporters following his victory in Istanbul.

Ekrem Imamoglu waves to his supporters following his victory in Istanbul.

TURKEY’S PRESIDENT RECEP Tayyip Erdogan suffered a bruising defeat yesterday as the opposition candidate in Istanbul’s controversial mayoral election won a significant victory.

Ekrem Imamoglu had won the first mayoral vote in March by a slim margin of 13,000 votes over Erdogan’s chosen candidate, Binali Yildirim.

Yildirim had contested that result and a new election was ordered.

With some 99 percent of ballots counted by Sunday night, Imamoglu was winning by more than 775,000 votes – 54 percent, with Yildirim on 45 percent, according to Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu.

“It was not a single group or party, but the whole of Istanbul and Turkey that won this election,” Imamoglu said in his victory speech.

“Mr President, I am ready to work in harmony with you. I convey from here my request to meet with you in the shortest time possible,” he added.

Critics had accused Erdogan of refusing to give up control of Istanbul, Turkey’s economic powerhouse and a crucial source of patronage for Islamic conservatives since he won the mayorship himself a quarter of a century ago.

The Turkish leader conceded defeat this time, writing on Twitter: “I congratulate Ekrem Imamoglu who has won the election based on preliminary results.”

Imamoglu, a little-known district mayor at the start of the year, ran a positive campaign under the slogan: “Everything will be fine.”

The defeat is a significant one for Erdogan’s ruling AKP party, which has been in power in Turkey since 2002 and remains the most popular political force nationwide.

“It’s a colossal defeat for Yildirim but also Erdogan. His gamble (in calling for a replay of the election) backfired,” said Berk Esen, an assistant professor of international relations at Ankara’s Bilkent University.

It comes as an economic slump and rising prices have dented the president’s reputation for economic stewardship, with the AKP also losing the capital Ankara in March.

“The AKP elites will probably try to de-emphasise the election and act like it’s no big deal,” said Esen.

Erdogan has already played down the importance of the re-run, saying last week that the choice of mayor was “only a change in the shop window” since the AKP controls almost two-thirds of the city’s districts.

For many conservatives, Erdogan remains a hero who has brought prosperity and fiercely defended the country’s interests since taking over in 2003. </s> ISTANBUL — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared victory in Sunday’s closely fought elections before all votes were counted, prompting the opposition to cry foul.

With 95 percent of ballot boxes counted at 11 p.m. local time, Turkey’s longtime leader had 52 percent of the presidential vote. If confirmed, his victory would pave the way for Erdoğan to rule Turkey as executive president until 2023.

And while Erdoğan’s AKP party lost its majority in parliament, as many pollsters predicted, their junior coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), performed better than expected, meaning they will still hold the most seats in parliament.

The opposition, however, is contesting the results of Sunday’s twin elections, the first time Turkey held simultaneous presidential and parliamentary polls. Pre-election surveys had suggested that their alliance could seize a majority in parliament and force Erdoğan into a second round for the presidential vote on July 8.

“I hope nobody will try to cast a shadow on the results and harm democracy in order to hide their own failure,” Erdoğan said in a short speech in Istanbul, referring to the opposition’s complaints.

The secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP) maintains that the president will face a runoff against their nominee Muharrem Ince. Party spokesman and vice president, Bülent Tezcan, said that their count shows Erdoğan’s final vote share below the 50 percent mark, which he needs to surpass to avoid going to a second round.

Turkey does not have exit polls. Instead, the vote count is broadcast while it is ongoing, with the media depending on Turkey’s state news agency Anadolu for results during the night.

As in previous elections, Anadolu started broadcasting results showing a high percentage for Erdoğan and the AKP that gradually decreased as more ballots were opened. Initial results put the incumbent at about 60 percent.

The opposition has cast doubt on Anadolu’s vote count, claiming that their own polls conducted at ballot boxes show a different picture. The agency’s initial count is separate from that of Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council, which has yet to announce the official results.

This did not stop some politicians — such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — from congratulating Erdoğan on his victory. The leader of the MHP, Devlet Bahçeli, also offered his congratulations before all ballots were counted.

For weeks, Erdoğan’s decision to move the elections forward by 18 months seemed to backfire. Turkey’s economic woes spelled trouble for the president, who had made prosperity a central election campaign promise.

Meanwhile, the opposition forged an electoral alliance that appeared to become a genuine threat to the AKP’s parliamentary majority.

Many opposition supporters questioned the preliminary vote counts for the MHP and the CHP, which differed by several percentage points from pre-election polling.

The early results showed the CHP with 23 percent of the vote, despite running an unusually strong campaign that saw millions turn out for its rallies. In the last parliamentary election in November 2015, the party won 25 percent.

The MHP appeared to maintain its 2015 result of 11 percent even though it was projected to lose a significant amount of votes, as the party split in two last year. The MHP rebels’ newly founded Iyi Party, on the other hand, fared worse than expected at 10 percent.

If the opposition parties choose to formally challenge the results, their options are limited as the Supreme Electoral Council’s word is final.

Critics have questioned the council’s impartiality, arguing that Turkey’s institutions have come under intense pressure amid the government’s growing authoritarianism. During last year’s referendum on whether to turn Turkey into an executive presidency, the council issued a last-minute decision to accept unstamped ballots.

The opposition was, however, bolstered by the performance of the pro-Kurdish, left-wing Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) which passed the 10 percent threshold to enter parliament.

Sunday’s vote completed Turkey’s move to a presidential system, which the opposition has warned will lead to one-man rule due to the president’s greatly expanded powers.

Read this next: On migration, EU leaders unite around plan to forego unity </s> President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey for 15 years, won "an absolute majority" in Sunday's poll, the country's election officials said. Official results are expected later in the week.

ANKARA, Turkey—President Recep Tayyip Erdogan returned to Turkey’s capital city in the early hours Monday to celebrate his twin victory in presidential and parliamentary elections as the opposition pondered whether to challenge the results or admit defeat.

Delivering a traditional balcony speech from the headquarters of his Justice & Development Party, or AKP, Mr. Erdogan vowed to roll up his sleeves to build a bigger and stronger Turkey.
Incumbent President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claims victory as preliminary results show him winning a majority of votes.