Turkey’s presidential election goes to run-off: Election council
Turkey’s high-stakes presidential election is headed for a run-off vote, Turkey’s electoral chief Ahmet Yener, has said, citing official results from the country’s Supreme Election Council.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took 49.5 percent of Sunday’s vote, with his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, getting 44.89 percent, the Council said. As neither secured more than 50 percent of the vote, they will face off in a second round on May 28, taking Turkey into uncharted territory. This is only the third time that Turks directly voted for a president, with Erdogan winning both previous elections outright in the first round. Two weeks is a long time in an election cycle, and whoever eventually wins the presidency will be determined also by whose alliance will control parliament. The Turkish news agency published preliminary results that showed AK Party won 266 seats, while the main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP) won 166 seats in the 600-seat parliament.
