Presidential elections in Turkey/ Voting process starts nationwide

2023-05-28 08:45:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

In Turkey, on Sunday, the runoff round in the presidential elections is held.

Over 60 million citizens with the right to vote will choose between the current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the candidate of the opposition coalition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Polling stations opened at 08:00 local time and will close at 17:00. The first unofficial results of the runoff round are expected to be released on Sunday evening.

In the first round of presidential elections, held on May 14, Erdogan came first, winning 49.5 percent of the vote, while Kilicaroglu managed to get 44.9 percent of the vote.

This was the first time in 20 years in power that Erdogan did not win the elections in the first round.

A day before the runoff, Erdogan called on Turks to go to the polls, while Kilicaroglu called for the country to leave "the darkness" that, according to him, has entered during Erdogan's two-decade rule.

The opposition has seen the presidential and parliamentary elections in May as the best opportunity to oust Erdogan from power and to abandon the changes that the Turkish president has made in the country.

The two candidates have focused their run-off campaign on trying to convince about 8 million voters who did not vote in the first round of elections.

In the May 14 elections, in addition to the presidential elections, parliamentary elections were also held, and Erdogan's party, the Justice and Development Party (AK) won the parliamentary majority.

Speaking to his supporters in Istanbul at the close of the campaign on May 27, Erdogan called for a high turnout in the election.

Meanwhile, Kilicdaroglu, who is the candidate of the six-party opposition alliance, said that anyone who loves Turkey should vote in the runoff.

Erdogan earlier this week received support from Sinan Ogan, the nationalist politician who came third in the first round. Ogan, who said he will support Erdogan in the runoff, managed to get 5.2 percent of the votes in the first round of the elections.

Kilicdaroglu, who is the leader of the largest opposition party, the Republican People's Party (CHP), managed to win the support for the runoff of the Victory Party, which has anti-migrant positions./REL