Kurdish party breaches threshold

Sunday's vote ushers in a powerful new executive presidency long sought by Erdogan and backed by a small majority of Turks in a 2017 referendum. Critics say it will further erode democracy in the NATO member state and entrench one-man rule.

With 95 per cent of votes counted in the presidential race, Erdogan had 52.8 per cent, comfortably ahead of Ince on 30 per cent, broadcasters said.

Results being compiled by the Fair Election Platform, formed by opposition parties, also pointed to Erdogan winning the presidency in the first round with about 53 per cent.

In the parliamentary contest, the Islamist-rooted AK Party had 43 per cent and its MHP ally 11 per cent, based on 90 per cent of votes counted, broadcasters said.

In the opposition camp, the CHP had 22 per cent and the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) 10 per cent - the threshold it needs to reach to enter Parliament.

The HDP's presidential candidate, Selahattin Demirtas, has waged his election campaign from a prison near the Greek border as he awaits trial on terrorism-related charges, which he denies. He had 7 per cent, based on 90 per cent of votes cast.

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Fraud fears

AK Party supporters clogged a main road in the capital Ankara leading to party headquarters honking horns in celebration. Erdogan was expected to address supporters from a balcony of the headquarters building later in the evening.

Election turnout nationwide was very high at around 87 per cent for both contests, the state broadcaster said.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed his supporters outside the official residence on Sunday. With more than 97 per cent of the votes counted, he apparently secured more than 50 per cent of the balloting, avoiding a run-off. Lefteris Pitarakis

Opposition parties and NGOs deployed up to half a million monitors at ballot boxes to ward against possible electoral fraud. They have said election law changes and fraud allegations in the 2017 referendum raise fears about the fairness of Sunday's elections.

Erdogan said there had been no serious voting violations.

"Turkey is staging a democratic revolution," he told reporters after casting his own vote in Istanbul.

"With the presidential system, Turkey is seriously raising the bar, rising above the level of contemporary civilisations."

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Erdogan supporters celebrate outside his official residence in Istanbul on Sunday. Lefteris Pitarakis

Erdogan, the most popular but also divisive leader in modern Turkish history, argues the new powers will better enable him to tackle the nation's economic problems - the lira has lost 20 per cent against the dollar this year - and crush Kurdish rebels in south-east Turkey and in neighbouring Iraq and Syria.

Investors would welcome the prospect of a stable working relationship between the president and the new Parliament, although they also have concerns about Erdogan's recent comments suggesting he wants to take greater control of monetary policy.

Erdogan has declared himself an "enemy of interest rates", raising fears he will pressure the central bank to cut borrowing costs after the election despite double-digit inflation.

He brought forward the elections from November 2019, but he reckoned without Ince, a former physics teacher and veteran CHP lawmaker, whose feisty performance at campaign rallies has galvanised Turkey's long-demoralised and divided opposition.

Muharrem Ince, presidential candidate backed by Secular Republican People's Party (CHP) (centre). Kostas Tsironis

The state of emergency restricts some freedoms and allows the government to bypass Parliament with decrees. Both Erdogan and Ince have said they will lift the state of emergency as president.

Erdogan blamed the coup on his former ally, US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, and has waged a sweeping crackdown on his followers in Turkey, detaining some 160,000 people, according to the United Nations.

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The President's critics, including the European Union which Turkey still nominally aspires to join, say Erdogan has used the crackdown to stifle dissent.

Erdogan says his tough measures are needed to safeguard national security.

Supporters of Turkey's President and ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate outside the party headquarters in Istanbul, Sunday, June 24, 2018. Emrah Gurel

Reuters</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>President Recep Tayyip claimed yet another victory in the country's political history with his re-election in Sunday's presidential elections, with 52.6 percent of the votes. For the next five years he will serve as Turkey's 13th president of the Republic.

"The people have given us the executive and legislative duties," Erdoğan said, speaking at a press conference late yesterday in Istanbul, and expressed his gratitude for the people's support.

"Turkey, with nearly 90 percent participation rate, has taught a lesson of democracy," Erdoğan said. He added that the Western countries, which have lower participation rates, should change their stance against Turkey's democracy.

The president said his government will continue to take Turkey to new levels of economic and social development in the new term.

"It is time to leave behind the campaign period rivalry," Erdoğan said, and added that Turkey will transition into the new presidential system in a speedy manner.

Erdoğan ran for president against five other rivals as the joint candidate of the People's Alliance, formed by his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

According to unofficial results, the incumbent president came out as the winner in two of the three most-populated provinces, Istanbul and Ankara, while his rival the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Muharrem İnce, received the majority of votes in İzmir. İnce received 30.8 of the overall votes in the polls at the time Daily Sabah went to print [97 percent of the ballot boxes opened], an increase from his party's traditional numbers in the country, which lie between 20 and 25 percent. Aside from İnce, the newly established Good Party (İP) Chairwoman Meral Akşener, the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) former co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş, the Felicity Party (SP) Chairman Temel Karamollaoğlu and the Patriotic Party (VP) Chairman Doğu Perinçek also ran as presidential hopefuls. Following Erdoğan and İnce, Demirtaş received 8.1 percent, while Akşener receieved 7.4 percent of the votes. The SP and VP candidates received 0.9 and 0.2 percent respectively.

Erdoğan won the support of the majority in 64 provinces, while his closest rival, İnce, claimed victory in eight provinces, and HDP candidate Demirtaş came out as the winner in nine provinces, all of which are in the eastern and southeast of the country. The incumbent president saw an increase in support in Istanbul and Ankara, two provinces where Erdoğan had not received a majority in the April 16, 2017 referendum on the constitutional amendments. İnce was able to secure the majority on the west coast of the country, where his party has traditionally had majority support, with the exception of the eastern Tunceli province, another CHP stronghold.

In 2014, Turkey had, for the first time, elected its president through popular voting. Then, three candidates had competed: Erdoğan, Demirtaş, and the joint candidate of the CHP and MHP Ekmeledding İhsanoğlu.

Erdoğan was elected with 51.8 percent as Turkey's first president elected with a popular vote, followed by İhsanoğlu at 38.4 percent and Demirtaş at 9.8 percent. The victor Erdoğan had received more than 21 million of votes, while İhsanoğlu had received 15.58 million and Demirtaş received 3.95 million of votes.

In the three most populated provinces of Turkey, Istanbul, Ankara and İzmir, Erdoğan had come as the winner of the most votes in Istanbul and Ankara, while İhsanoğlu had claimed the majority of the votes in the CHP stronghold western province of İzmir. While Erdoğan claimed the majority of the votes in central and northern provinces, the CHP candidate had received the majority of the votes in the western and southwestern coastal provinces. Demirtaş had claimed majority of the votes in the eastern and southeastern province, which are mostly Kurdish-populated, followed by Erdoğan. The participation rate in 2014 presidential elections was nearly 74 percent.

As of today, the government system of the country, which was been at work since the formation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, will begin to change from the parliamentary system to the presidential executive system.

The constitutional changes necessary to switch the government from a parliamentary to a presidential system were approved by the public in last year's referendum on April 16. The most prominent change is that the government will now be headed by a president, rather a prime minister, as the post is now dismantled.

In a sign of more streamlined governance, the number of ministers, who will be appointed by the president, will decrease from 21 to 16. The ministries will not be removed rather they will be combined, with the Foreign Ministry and European Union Ministry united under a single portfolio.

The same is true for the Customs and Trade Ministry and Economy Ministry, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, the Ministry of Family and Social Policies, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, the Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs, the Ministry of Development, and the Ministry of Science, Industry, and Technology. With the new system, several organizations will now be organized as agencies, affiliated with the presidency, including the National Intelligence Agency (MİT), the Turkish Armed Forces General Staff, the Presidency of Defense Industry, the National Security Council, the Presidency of Strategy and Budget, the Presidency of Religious Affairs, the State Inspection Council and the Presidency of Communications. A separate hierarchy of agencies under the presidency will now run the government.

A new presidential administrative office will be founded to run the daily routine of the presidency. Four new offices are also being established to introduce a faster and more strategic decision-making process in governance.

Offices on human resources, finance, investment and digital transformation will be established to supervise the state's human resources and institute the state's digital transformation to adapt to the digital age and fight cyberterrorism. Nine separate councils will develop, supervise and coordinate relevant policy suggestions. The main priority will be a more effectively run government by delegating responsibility with authority. One of the main focal points of the transformation of the state will be to institute a more effective economic management structure. The number of ministries linked to the running of the economy will be decreased from six and their responsibilities will be more clear-cut to better delineate their areas of influence. The many facets of counterterrorism will be channeled into a single and more organized structure for a better coordinated and more effective fight against terrorism.</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.</s>For a time, it looked as if Turkey’s battered democracy might pull off an improbable revival in Sunday’s national elections. With the Turkish economy reeling, the aura of inevitable victory that surrounded President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has led his country without pause for fifteen years, appeared to be dissipating. His chief opponent, Muharrem Ince, of the Republican People’s Party, ran a strong campaign, at times calling out the corruption that surrounds Erdoğan and his circle. Ince and Erdoğan’s other opponents hoped that they could hold the President to under fifty per cent on Sunday and then, in a runoff, ride a newfound momentum to an upset victory.

It was not to be. Erdoğan declared a win in the first round, claiming fifty-three per cent of the vote cast. In a speech in Istanbul, he appeared already to have moved on. “Citizens have cast their votes and spoken clearly,’’ he said.

Assuming that his victory holds, Erdoğan will stand firmly in the ranks of authoritarian leaders around the world—including Viktor Orbán, of Hungary, and Andrzej Duda, of Poland—who are using the cover of elections to undermine the other institutions that make a liberal democracy work. By virtue of a block of constitutional amendments narrowly approved in a referendum last year, and of Sunday’s victory, Erdoğan will have more power than ever.

The wonder was that there was any suspense at all: as a candidate, Erdoğan got nearly all the media attention, but he also sent one of his main opponents, Selahattin Demirtaş, of the Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, to prison on a trumped-up charge of terrorism. Indeed, it’s a testament to the Turkish people that so many refused to give up on the idea of democratic rule.

Erdoğan came to power in 2003, after having spent time as Istanbul’s mayor and in prison as a political prisoner. (He had recited a poem that appeared to advocate militant Islam.) For a pious Muslim politician in Turkey, the duality was unremarkable: since the nation’s founding, in 1923, it had been ruled by a pro-Western secular élite that relied on the military to keep it in power—and Islamists and Communists out. With the end of the Cold War, Turkey began to liberalize and, in 2002, Erdoğan’s party, known by its Turkish initials, the A.K.P., swept to power.

At the time—just after the 9/11 attacks, just before the invasion of Iraq—the West and, particularly, the United States were desperate for friends in the Islamic world. The Europeans offered Turkey membership in the European Union and the Bush and Obama Administrations embraced Erdoğan for his seeming moderation. “Before anything else, I’m a Muslim,’’ he told the Times Magazine shortly after becoming Prime Minister, in 2003. “As a Muslim, I try to comply with the requirements of my religion. I have a responsibility to God, who created me, and I try to fulfill that responsibility. But I try now very much to keep this away from political life, to keep it private.” Indeed, Erdoğan seemed to realize that the West’s obsession with militant Islam gave him the freedom to pursue his real agenda—to gain more power for himself.

His first anti-democratic campaign began in 2008, with trials of members of the military and the secular establishment charged with attempting to foment a coup. The cases were known by their unusual code names, Sledgehammer and Ergenekon. I remember going through the evidence in both cases—page after page of indictments, charges, and transcripts—and being astounded at how preposterous much of the evidence appeared.

It felt as if I were sitting in a courtroom in Eastern Europe in the nineteen-forties, or the Soviet Union in the nineteen-thirties. Unlike in those earlier regimes, Erdoğan did not have his opponents shot, but the prosecutions led to the imprisonment of hundreds of officers, journalists, and intellectuals.

The second campaign began in 2016, in the aftermath of a failed coup in which dozens of Turks were killed. Much remains unknown about the attempt, but it was staged by disgruntled military officers and members of the Gulenist religious group, whose leader, Fethullah Gülen, lives in exile in Pennsylvania. (Gülen has denied involvement.)

In the nearly two years since, Erdoğan has jailed as many as forty thousand people—most of them without trial—including judges, journalists, academics, and members of parliament. The free press has been decimated, as has the independent judiciary.

Under such conditions, is it any wonder that Erdoğan won? That’s the real lesson of Sunday’s election—that, in Turkey, as in Russia and Hungary and Poland, there’s more to democracy than just elections.

The only question left is how long Erdoğan will stay. He is only sixty-four; while many believed that he had undergone cancer treatment, in 2012, he has said that he did not have the disease, and he is, by all accounts, tireless and enthusiastic. But he is showing the telltale signs of a late-stage autocrat. His love of grandiose construction projects—a canal stretching from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara; his eleven-hundred-room, six-hundred-million-dollar palace—bespeak of a monarch whose sense of importance has begun to border on the absolute.

Leaders who no can longer tolerate being questioned usually end up making terrible errors. Erdoğan may yet do so. The Turkish economy is heading toward a recession, and, during the campaign, he promised that if he won he would take control of the country’s Central Bank. Throughout history, when a country’s populist autocrat gets control of that institution, chaos is usually not far away.

For Turkey’s sake, let’s hope that something slows him down. In any case, when Erdoğan finally leaves office, the Turkish people will find that much of what had once held their country together has been dismantled or severely degraded. That’s when the real work of rebuilding Turkey’s democracy will begin.</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>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>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 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>Festival-like celebrations took place across the country after a clear victory was announced for the re-election of the incumbent President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the People's Alliance, formed by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on Sunday's historic presidential and parliamentary elections. After the results were announced, thousands of Erdoğan supporters took to the streets and celebrated in almost every corner of the country, while major provinces such as the capital Ankara and Turkey's culture and commercial capital Istanbul witnessed historic moments. Erdoğan claimed a win with 52.6 percent in the presidential elections, while the People's Alliance secured 344 parliamentary seats, gaining the majority in the 600 seat Parliament.

Erdoğan was followed by the Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Muharrem İnce as the closest rival with 30.6 percent of the votes, according to unofficial results with 99.9 percent of the ballot boxes opened. The official election results will be announced on July 5, Turkey's Supreme Election Council (YSK) said yesterday. Erdoğan addressed thousands of supporters in Istanbul, where he cast his vote, late Sunday, and later traveled to the capital Ankara to address the thousands waiting for his victory speech at AK Party's headquarters. "The winners of the June 24 elections are Turkey, the Turkish nation, sufferers of our region and all the oppressed in the world," Erdoğan said during his address to the nation, and added that democracy had triumphed with high participation rates in the elections.

The president also thanked the partner party in the People's Alliance, the MHP, for their support.

"I would like to express my gratitude to my people, my brothers and sisters who put their trust in me, my alliance and my party," Erdoğan said.

Erdoğan said he also received the citizens' message in the polls, as AK Party received less votes than himself as the presidential candidate.

AK Party received 42.6 percent of the vote and 295 seats at the Parliament, while MHP secured 11.1 percent of the overall vote and secured 44 seats at the Parliament. The rival alliance, the Nation Alliance, formed by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), the Good Party (İP) and the Felicity Party (SP) received 33.9 percent of the vote and 189 seats at the Parliament. The pro-PKK Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) received 11.7 percent of the vote and secured 67 seats.

 

 

 President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan greets his supporters from the balcony of the ruling AK Party headquarters in Ankara early yesterday

Voter turnout in the presidential race was 84.3 percent, out of more than 53 million voters, and for the parliamentary elections the turnout was 86.22 percent; the two elections which were held on the same day.

"In this term, we will be before our nation and make up for our shortcomings," Erdoğan added. "Starting from tomorrow, we will be in a rush trying to deliver on promises that we have made to our nation."

He also said his government would confront terror groups more decisively. "We will increase our country's international reputation," he added.

"Turkey has decided to take the side of growth, development, investment, enrichment and a reputable, honorable and influential country in all areas in the world," Erdoğan said.

Turkey had approved a shift from the parliamentary system to a presidential one in a referendum on a constitutional amendments package on April 16, 2017. The government in Turkey will now be led by a president, as the prime ministerial post is dismantled.

In addition to the country-wide celebrations, with young and old taking to the streets, Turks abroad also flocked to the streets to celebrate Erdoğan's victory, particularly in European countries.

Expats in many European countries, including Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Bosnia and Herzegovina joined their countrymen in Turkey who celebrated the election win with waving the Turkish flags in their cities.

Many in Muslim-majority countries also celebrated Erdoğan's election win, as he is viewed by many as the leader of the oppressed around the world.

Sunday's elections were observed by both domestic and international monitors who said the overall process for the elections was healthy and fair.
Incumbent President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claims victory as preliminary results show him winning a majority of votes.