TURKS VOTE FOR NEW PRESIDENT
Criticises state media coverage, says signs of manipulation
Turks began voting on Sunday for a new president and parliament in elections that pose the biggest ballot box challenge to Tayyip Erdogan and his AK Party. The elections will also usher in a powerful new executive presidency long sought by Erdogan.
ANKARA/ISTANBUL : Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AK Parti took the lead in Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday, according to preliminary partial results, boosting the president’s hopes of extending his 15-year rule.
However, the early results had been expected to give Erdogan and his party a strong lead and it was expected to shorten as more votes are tallied across the nation of 81 million people.
With about half of votes counted in the presidential race, Erdogan had 57%, well ahead of his closest rival, Muharrem Ince, of the main opposition, secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), on 29% , broadcasters said.
If no presidential candidate wins more than 50% in Sunday’s vote, a second round run-off will be held on July 8.
An AK Parti official said it expected Erdogan to win the election outright in the first round with at least 51%.
In the parliamentary contest, the AK Parti had 47%, based on 40% of votes counted, broadcasters said. The CHP had 19% and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) 9%.
Turnout nationwide was high at around 87% for both contests, the state broadcaster said.
Ince, who’d earlier warned of the risk of vote fraud, said he was headed to the office of the electoral watchdog, ready to file any objections. In the capital Ankara, municipal trucks loaded with sand blocked a road outside Erdogan’s presidential palace.
The CHP, which placed a monitor at each polling station, said that its own early count was radically different, showing Erdogan at 47% and Ince around 40%. There are signs of “open manipulation,” said deputy leader Bulent Tezcan.
Erdogan has presided over an economic boom that’s threatened to turn into a bust in recent months, as the currency plunged and capital fled. Under his government, Turkey’s ties with its western allies have also come under unprecedented strain, as Erdogan increasingly sided with Russia in the Syrian civil war.
In this election, which Erdogan brought forward by 18 months, victory for the incumbent doesn’t mean no change. Last year, Erdogan drove through constitutional reforms that shift Turkey toward a US-style political system, eliminating the office of prime minister and handing the president powers to pass laws by decree, pick cabinet ministers from outside the legislature, force new elections and declare a state of emergency. If he wins, Erdogan will become the first leader to formally exercise them.
The prospect of presidential rule helped galvanise Erdogan’s rivals, who promised to undo all the changes and reinstate Turkey’s parliamentary democracy. Ince and other candidates accused Erdogan of presiding over an arbitrary system in which political opponents, journalists, judges and students were at risk of landing in jail.