At 16:00 our time, the polling stations in Turkey were closed, thus ending the voting in the presidential and parliamentary elections. Incomplete and unofficial election results are expected tonight, counting of votes is in progress.
The citizens of Turkey voted today in the presidential and parliamentary elections, and they chose between three presidential candidates, and 24 political parties and 151 independent candidates for the parliament, which has a total of 600 seats.
64.11 million people have the right to vote in the elections, and more than 4.9 million Turkish citizens voted for the first time.
Current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kemal Kilicdaroglu and Sinan Ogan, according to the order on the ballot, are candidates for the presidency of Turkey.
Polls the day before the election showed Erdogan lagging behind the main opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. However, if none of them wins more than 50 percent of the vote and secures an outright victory, a second round of elections will be held on May 28.
Currently, Erdogan won 49,86 percent (24,724,847) and Kilicdaroglu 44,38 (22,099,957).
Turkey’s opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) expressed optimism about today’s presidential and parliamentary elections and warned that early results should not be taken as reliable.
“The picture so far is quite positive,” said Faik Oztrak from the CHP, the BBC reports.
He warned Turks not to pay attention to the first results published by the state-run Anadolu news agency, accusing it of “conducting an operation that cannot be trusted.”
“We see that the turnout will be record-breaking,” said Oztrak and repeated that we should wait for the numbers after opening a larger number of ballot boxes.
Istanbul’s opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu called on Turks not to pay attention to the results published by the state-run Anadolu Agency.
