Erdogan declares victory in presidential election
Critics warn his re-election could cement grip on power for increasingly autocratic leader
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared victory after unofficial election returns Sunday showed him with enough votes to serve another term that carries new executive powers.
“The nation has entrusted to me the responsibility of the presidency and the executive duty,” Erdogan said in televised remarks from Istanbul after a near-complete count carried by the state-run news agency gave him the majority needed to avoid a runoff.
The presidential election and a parliamentary election also held Sunday, both more than a year early, complete NATO-member Turkey’s transition from a parliamentary system of government to a strong presidential system. Voters approved the change in a referendum last year.
Erdogan, 64, insisted before the election that the expanded powers — which include the authority to impose states of emergency and to issue decrees — would bring prosperity and stability to Turkey, especially after a failed military coup attempt in 2016. A state of emergency has been in place since the coup.
The president’s critics, however, warned that Erdogan’s re-election would cement the grip on power of a leader who they accuse of showing increasingly autocratic tendencies.
Official results were to be declared by the country’s electoral board.
Results carried by the state-run Anadolu news agency with more than 96 per cent of ballot boxes counted showed Erdogan winning an outright majority of 52.6 per cent, far ahead of the 30.75 per cent for his main contender, the secular Muharrem Ince.
Kurdish candidate Selahattin Demirtas, who ran his campaign from prison, where he is being held pending trial on terrorism-related charges, was garnering 8.1 per cent. He has called the charges trumped-up and politically motivated.
However, Ince said the results carried on Anadolu were not a true reflection of the official vote count by the country’s electoral board.
In a tweet earlier in the evening, he said only 37 per cent of ballot boxes had actually been counted, as opposed to the more than nearly 90 per cent Anadolu was reporting at the time. He accused the agency of “manipulation” of the results.