Turkey elections: ‘We are ahead’ say Erdogan’s rivals as polls close
Turkey’s opposition has told its supporters to stay home, whether they win or lose amid fears of violence as votes were being counted in the country’s election on Sunday night.
Turkey’s main opposition candidate was headed for a narrow lead over the incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. However sources in both parties were briefing that a run-off was likely.
Turkey’s election officials have not released any results but an unofficial count of 52 per cent of the ballots by the Anka news agency showed Mr Erdogan who ruled the country for two decades was leading the race with 47 per cent, less than one percent ahead of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, indicating that the election will go to a run-off.
Uncharacteristically, President Erdogan who typically comes out early on election night to declare a victory was silent as voting got underway.
His party’s spokesman in a statement on Sunday night pushed back the opposition claims of a lead, insisting that “our president is clearly leading by a wide margin.”
Omer Celik said Mr Erdogan’s party will “respect the authority” of the election and will not announce their own count.
Canan Kaftancioglu, the head of the Istanbul chapter of Mr Kilicdaroglu’s party, told reporters in Istanbul they were leading on 51.4 percent in Turkey’s largest city with 40 per cent of the votes counted.
