May 14, 2023 Turkey election news

The music came to an abrupt halt at a rally outside the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) headquarters in Istanbul on Sunday evening, as soon as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's tally slipped below the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff.

AK Party supporters pointed at the screen displaying the preliminary results reported by state-run Anadolu news agency. A hushed silence fell over the crowd that just hours earlier was jubilant over early reports that showed Erdogan with a comfortable lead.

Still the mood was defiant. "We’re come back with even more strength in the second round," said Nuray Ekici, a 31-year-old teacher. "We will never abandon him."

Another man, Ismail Boyaci, 53, said, "Our mood may have changed but Erdogan’s leadership won’t change. We will continue to stand upright."

Ahmet Yener, chairman of Turkey's Supreme Election Council, which will announce the final figures, has said that it has so far entered just over 47% of domestic votes cast in the election and 12.6% of votes from abroad into its system.

During a statement outside the council's headquarters he also rejected allegations from the opposition that it was delaying publishing results.

"The results coming from polling stations are sent to District Election Councils and from there to Provincial Election Councils. This is how the data is entered into the system," he added.

That could mean there is still some time before we get an official result.

The gap between the two leading presidential candidates is continuing to narrow as more votes from Turkey's big cities -- which tend to favor opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu -- pour in.

State news agency Anadolu is reporting that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's vote has dropped to 49.86% -- below the 50% needed to avoid a runoff -- ahead of Kilicdaroglu's 44.38%, with 90% of votes counted.

As the numbers shifted on screens at the AK Party headquarters in Istanbul, the music stopped and the mood darkened.

Soli Ozel, professor of international relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, said the race looked likely to go to a runoff

"Over 60% Turkey's population live in 11 cities. 20% -- thereabouts 18 to 19% of Turkey's population live in Istanbul. Istanbul is a very contested city which the opposition actually won back in 2019," Ozel told CNN.

"So, we are in the clouds, if you will. But it does look, like I must say, that we will have to go to a second round in the presidential since the parliamentary election is a one-round election."

Opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu has posted a tweet suggesting that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's vote share, which started the night at 60%, has now dropped to below 50%.

He urged the country's electoral board, the Supreme Election Council, to stay alert and stick by their posts to provide data entry throughout the evening.

"The fiction which started at 60 percent has now dropped below 50. Ballot observers and election board officials should never leave their places. We will not sleep tonight, my people. I warn the Supreme Election Council, you have to provide data entry in the provinces,” he said. 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked his supporters on Sunday "to stay at the ballot boxes, no matter what until the results are officially finalized."

"The fact that the 14 May elections took place in the form of a great feast of democracy with peace and quiet is an expression of the democratic maturity of our Turkey," Erdogan said on Twitter.

"I congratulate all my citizens who voted in the name of democracy and took part in the election work, and I express my gratitude to each and every one of them," he added. 

The third presidential candidate, Sinan Ogan, an ultra-nationalist who was polling in the single digits, said on Sunday night that he believed the race was likely to go to a runoff.

"Turkish nationalists and Kemalists are the key to this election," he said. "Those who attacked us in the last two days after Muharrem Ince was forced out of the elections with various pressures, accused us unjustly and attempted to lynch us should have a lot of lessons to be learned from this political picture!" Ogan was referring to Muharrem Ince, who pulled out of the race on Thursday after what he called a "slander campaign" against him.

With about 85% of ballots counted, Ogan, who is an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had only about 5% of the vote, according to preliminary results reported by state-run news agency Anadolu. That support could make Ogan a potential kingmaker in the runoff.

There were mixed emotions in the crowd gathered outside the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) headquarters in Istanbul, with some Erdogan supporters fearful he might lose, while others were certain he would prevail.

She threw up the four-finger "Rabaa" salute, closely associated with Erdogan. The president originally used the gesture in a show of solidarity with followers of Egypt's deposed Islamist President Mohamed Morsy in 2013, after security forces crushed protest camps of his Muslim Brotherhood supporters in a square near Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque. Turkey became one of the fiercest critics of the violence, which left hundreds dead. “Rabaa” means “four” or “the fourth” in Arabic.

"I am afraid. I am worried about him losing. I am worried that someone else will win. I worry because we are Muslims and we wish for someone Muslim to to be our president," said Seda Yavuz.

"I trust the Turkish people. I trust that he is going to win," Gozde Demirci said. Pointing to her headscarf, she added: "This is freedom. I have this freedom because of him (Erdogan). They (opposition) don’t want this. They don’t want freedom."

As votes continue being counted for Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections, analysts say it’s still early to call.

“I think it is still too early to call,” the Managing Director of the Istanbul Research Center, Can Selcuki, told CNN. 

“We are in a strange situation because there isn't just enough data. Anadolu news agency, the official agency that has the monopoly over the official results, basically, seems to have stopped at some point ... It is looking like a war of nerves at this point," Selcuki added.

Asli Aydintasbas, a Turkish policy expert and fellow at the Brookings Institution, cast doubt on the opposition sealing the election on Sunday. 

The gap between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is narrowing, according to preliminary results.

With 80.48% of votes counted, Erdogan's lead has dropped slightly to 50.43%, ahead of Kilicdaroglu's 43.77%, according to state-run Anadolu news agency.

A reminder of how Turkey's elections work: The candidate who receives more than 50% of votes in the first round is elected president, but if no candidate gets a majority vote, the election goes to a second round between the two candidates who received the highest number of votes in the first round.