Current president performed better than projected; direct contest against Kiliçdaroglu is scheduled for May 28
With 99.38% of the polls cleared, the dispute for the Presidency of Turkey is heading to the 2nd round. Current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 69, leads with 49.42% of the vote. Its main competitor, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, 74, comes next with 44.95%.
The 1st round of the election was held on Sunday (14.Mar.2023) and the 2nd round is scheduled for 28 May. The data is released in real time by the Supreme Electoral Council from Türkiye.
To win in the 1st round, a candidate must have an absolute majority of votes (50% + 1), as is the case in Brazil. At first, Erdogan held the lead with more than half of the electorate. As the calculation progressed, the chance of him being re-elected in the 1st round decreased.
All the ballot boxes used in Turkey were checked until the early hours of this Monday (May 15, 2023). Those remaining to complete the count were used abroad.
The partial result differs from what research pointed out. A survey of PolitPro indicated Kiliçdaroglu as the favorite of the election race throughout the campaign, with 48.9% of the intention of votes on May 7, the last poll carried out by the platform before the elections. Erdogan, on the other hand, fluctuated between 41.6% and 43.2% from March to May 2023.
Erdogan wants to continue with the presidential system of government, with the policy of reducing the interest rate – currently at 8.5% – and strengthen Turkish influence in the Middle East region.
Turkey’s leader became the country’s prime minister in 2003 and stayed in office until 2014, when he was elected president for the 1st time. If you count his time as prime minister and president, Erdogan has been in power for 20 years. As a special report by the Power360, the leader was considered a good manager of the economy during his first 15 years at the helm of the government. Afterwards, Türkiye’s situation worsened and his popularity dropped.
Another factor that would have resulted in a loss of popularity for Erdogan were the earthquakes that hit Turkey in 2023, especially in February. According to specialists, the president was criticized for not having prepared for a natural phenomenon of this devastating nature, despite the history of occurrences in the country.
As of March 1, 45,089 deaths caused by earthquakes have been recorded in Turkey. The tremors were the most intense and lethal recorded in the country since 1939. At the time, around 30,000 people died as a result of the natural disaster.
Kemal Kiliçdaroglu is a left-wing social democratic candidate in Turkey. Among his proposals for the election are the return of the parliamentary system in Turkey –changed to presidentialism in 2017 by Erdogan–, the resolution of impasses with the Kurdish population and the approximation of Turkey to the European Union and the United States.
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