Erdogan Wins New Term
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the majority of votes in Sunday’s high-stakes election, according to election officials -- surviving the most serious challenge yet to his political dominance and tightening his grip on the nation he has ruled for 15 years.
Sadi Guven, Turkey’s Supreme Election Board chief, said 97.7 per cent of the votes were counted and “the votes that have not been tallied so far do not change the outcome.”
Mr Erdogan had declared himself the winner before the official results were announced.
But the opposition cried foul, claiming that state media and the election commission had manipulated the results and saying it was too early to be sure of the outcome.
With his victory, Mr Erdogan will gain sweeping new powers when he resumes office. He narrowly won a referendum last year to transform the country’s parliamentary system to a powerful executive presidency, in what his critics called a blatant power grab. Mr Erdogan had also said his ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, and its allied Nationalist Movement Party, the MHP, had together retained their control of parliament.
The results were a blow to Erdogan’s closest rival, Muharrem Ince and his Republican People’s Party, known as the CHP, who had seemed on the verge of forcing the President into a damaging runoff and denying the AKPMHP alliance a parliamentary majority.
“Our nation has given me the mandate for the presidency,” Mr Erdogan said in a victory speech in Istanbul, noting his declaration was based on unofficial results.
“I would like to congratulate our nation once again. This has been another test of democracy and we have passed this test successfully.”
Around 59 million people were eligible to vote in both presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday.
Mr Erdogan said the participation rate was 90 per cent, an extraordinarily high number for any election.