page_title: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
section_title: Presidential elections
hierarchical_section_title: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan / Presidency (2014–present) / Presidential elections
caption_attribution_description: English: Billboards of Turkish Presidential canditates Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (L) and Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu (R), Mecidiyeköy, Istanbul.Türkçe: Cumhurbaşkanı adylarından Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ve Ekmeleddin ihsanoğlunun fotoğraflarının yer aldığı bilboardlar, Mecidiyeköy, İstanbul
context_page_description: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is a Turkish politician serving as the 12th and current President of Turkey. He previously served as Prime Minister of Turkey from 2003 to 2014 and as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998. He founded the Justice and Development Party in 2001, leading it to election victories in 2002, 2007, and 2011 before standing down upon his election as President in 2014. He later returned to the AKP leadership in 2017 following the constitutional referendum that year. Coming from an Islamist political background and as a self-described conservative democrat, he has promoted socially conservative and populist policies during his administration.
  Erdoğan played football for Kasımpaşa before being elected as the Mayor of Istanbul in 1994, as the candidate of the Islamist Welfare Party. He was later stripped of his position, banned from political office, and imprisoned for four months for inciting religious hatred, due to his recitation of a poem by Ziya Gökalp. Erdoğan subsequently abandoned openly Islamist politics, establishing the moderate conservative AKP in 2001, which he went on to lead to a landslide victory in 2002.
context_section_description: On 1 July 2014, Erdoğan was named the AKP's presidential candidate in the Turkish presidential election. His candidacy was announced by the Deputy President of the AKP, Mehmet Ali Şahin.
  Erdoğan made a speech after the announcement and used the 'Erdoğan logo' for the first time. The logo was criticised because it was very similar to the logo that U.S. President Barack Obama used in the 2008 presidential election.
  Erdoğan was elected as the President of Turkey in the first round of the election with 51.79% of the vote, obviating the need for a run-off by winning over 50%. The joint candidate of the CHP, MHP and 13 other opposition parties, former Organisation of Islamic Co-operation general secretary Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu won 38.44% of the vote. The pro-Kurdish HDP candidate Selahattin Demirtaş won 9.76%.
  The 2018 Turkish presidential election took place as part of the 2018 general election, alongside parliamentary elections on the same day. Following the approval of constitutional changes in a referendum held in 2017, the elected President will be both the head of state and head of government of Turkey, taking over the latter role from the to-be-abolished office of the Prime Minister.
  Incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared his candidacy for the People's Alliance (Turkish: Cumhur İttifakı) on 27 April 2018. Erdoğan's main opposition, the Republican People's Party, nominated Muharrem İnce, a member of the parliament known for his combative opposition and spirited speeches against Erdoğan. Besides these candidates, Meral Akşener, the founder and leader of İyi Party, Temel Karamollaoğlu, the leader of the Felicity Party and Doğu Perinçek, the leader of the Patriotic Party, have announced their candidacies and collected the 100,000 signatures required for nomination. The alliance which Erdoğan was candidate for won 52.59% of the popular vote.
caption: Posters of Erdoğan and his rival Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu during 2014 presidential election, Istanbul
exif: {}