Erdoğan secures another 5-year term in Türkiye’s runoff polls

ANKARA

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan headed for victory in the presidential runoff election on May 28, securing another five-year term in the presidency.

Erdoğan is reelected Türkiye’s president in the runoff election with 52.14 percent of the votes according to unofficial results, Supreme Election Council (YSK) Chair Ahmet Yener announced.

His challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the presidential candidate of Nation Alliance, garnered 47.86 percent of votes as 99.43 percent of the ballot boxes were opened, Yener said.

Yener stated that Erdoğan received 27,513,587 votes, while Kılıçdaroğlu had 25,260,109 votes, and that the uncounted 809,020 votes will not change the result.

In an address to his supporters outside his residence in Istanbul, Erdoğan thanked the voters and said, “With this victory, the door of ‘Century of Türkiye’ has opened.”

“The winner of this election is all 85 million strong Turkish nation, he stated.

“We have completed the second round of the presidential election with the favor of our nation… I would like to thank each and every member of our nation who once again conveyed to us responsibility for governing Türkiye for the next five years,” he said.

“We have 2024 [local elections] ahead of us. Are we ready to win Istanbul in the local elections? Non-stop,” he added.

Turkish voters went to the polls on May 14 for presidential and parliamentary elections, but neither of the candidates secured more than 50 percent of the votes needed to call a winner in the first round, therefore, Türkiye held a presidential runoff for the first time.

In the first round of the presidential election, incumbent President Erdoğan had earned 49.52 percent of the votes, while Kılıçdaroğlu received 44.88 percent of the votes.

Erdoğan was supported by the People’s Alliance, composed of the ruling Justice and Development Party (CHP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the New Welfare Party (YRP) and the Great Union Party (BBP), and was endorsed by Sinan Oğan, the presidential candidate of the four-party ATA Alliance, who garnered 5.2 percent of votes in the first round of the presidential elections on May 14.

Erdoğan has been in power since 2003, first as prime minister, then as directly elected president since 2014.

In the past two weeks of the election campaign, Erdoğan emphasized that his presidency will serve for harmony among the state bodies because the People’s Alliance holds the majority of seats in the parliament.