Turkish Politics Update: Recep Tayyip Erdogan Secures Re-election as President
Turkey’s Election Board on Sunday confirmed that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won Turkey’s 2023 presidential election, extending his rule into its third decade in power after facing the tightest race of his career.
Erdogan won Turkey’s presidency in a runoff election with 52.14% of the votes, the High Election Board head Ahmet Yener said, making the results official.
With 99.43% of ballot boxes opened, Erdogan’s rival Kilicdaroglu received 47.86% of the votes, Yener said. With a gap of more than 2 million votes between candidates, the rest of the uncounted votes will not change the result, he added.
Earlier Sunday, Turkish public broadcaster TRT had called the presidential election for incumbent Erdogan.
Analysts saw the 69-year-old Erdogan’s victory as all but in the bag after the first vote on May 14, which saw him come out five percentage points ahead of his rival, in a giant blow to the opposition.
Kilicdaroglu and his party CHP had pledged change, economic improvement, the salvaging of democratic norms and closer ties with the West — something many expected to take them to victory, especially as years of Erdogan’s economic policies helped create a cost-of-living crisis in Turkey. But in the end, it wasn’t enough.
The AK Party leader’s popularity remains alive and well, even despite public anger at a slow government response following a series of devastating earthquakes in February that killed more than 50,000 people.
