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ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey’s presidential election looks set for a runoff on Sunday after the incumbent, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, failed to win a majority of the vote, a result that left the longtime leader struggling to fend off his toughest political challenge. career.
The results of the vote set the stage for a A two-week battle between Mr. Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition leader, to secure victory in a May 28 runoff that could reshape Turkey’s political landscape.
With unofficial counts almost complete, Mr Erdogan received 49.4 percent of the vote to Mr Kilicdaroglu’s 44.8 percent, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
But both sides claim to be making progress.
“Although the final result is not there yet, we have led far,” Mr Erdogan told supporters outside the party’s headquarters in Ankara, the capital.
Speaking at his own party headquarters, Mr. Kilicdaroglu said the vote would express “the will of the nation.” He said, “We are here every vote counts.”
The rival lawsuits came Monday after an afternoon in which each camp accused the other of disclosing false information. Mr Erdogan warned the opposition on Twitter not to “seize the national will” and urged party loyalists “not to leave the polling station, no matter what, until the results are complete.”
Opposition politicians disputed the initial numbers reported by Anadolu, saying figures collected directly from polling stations showed Mr Kilicdaroglu in the lead.
At stake are the actions of NATO members who have managed to unsettle many of their Western allies by maintaining warm relations with the Kremlin. One of the world’s 20 largest economies, Turkey has multiple political and economic ties that span Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and its domestic and foreign policies can change dramatically depending on who wins.
After becoming prime minister in 2003, he led a period of extraordinary economic growth that transformed Turkey’s cities and lifted millions of Turks out of poverty. Internationally, he is hailed as a new model of democratic Islamists, who are pro-business and want strong ties with the West.
But over the past decade, Mr. Erdogan’s critics have grown at home and abroad. He faced mass protests against his style of government in 2013, and in 2016, two years after becoming president, he survived a coup attempt. Along the way, he seized opportunities to sidestep rivals and concentrate more power in his hands, drawing accusations from the political opposition that he would turn the country into an autocracy.
Since 2018, a sinking currency and inflation that official figures say exceeded 80 percent last year and 44 percent last month have eroded the value of Turks’ savings and salaries.
Mr. Erdogan’s inability to clinch victory in the first round of voting on Friday confirmed the decline in the number of angry voters with the stewardship of the economy and the consolidation of power. In the last election, in 2018, he won outright against three other candidates with 53 percent of the vote. His nearest challenger got 31 percent.
On Sunday, one voter, Fatma Cay, said he had supported Mr Erdogan in the past but had not done so this time, partly because he was angered by the high prices of food like onions.
“They forgot where they came from,” Cay, 70, said.
However, they did not go back to Mr. Kilicdaroglu, but chose a third candidate, Sinan Ogan, who got about 5 percent of the vote. Mr. Ogan’s removal could give Mr. Erdogan an edge in the runoff, as Mr. Ogan’s right-wing nationalist followers prefer him.
Mr Erdogan remains popular with rural, working-class and religious voters, who see him as developing the country, improving his international standing and advancing the rights of devout Muslims in Turkey’s secular state.
“We just love Erdogan,” said Halil Karaaslan, a pensioner. “They have built everything: roads, bridges and drones. People are comfortable and peaceful.”
That, said Mr. Karaaslan, is more important than the price increase. “There is no economic crisis,” he said. “It’s really expensive, but the salary is almost the same. It’s balancing.”
Seeking to capitalize on voter frustration, a coalition of six opposition parties came together to challenge Mr. Erdogan, backing a joint candidate, Mr. Kilicdaroglu.
Mr Kilicdaroglu, a former civil servant who ran Turkey’s social security administration before leading Turkey’s largest opposition party, campaigned as Mr Erdogan’s antithesis. Offering a contrast to Mr Erdogan’s tough-guy rhetoric, Mr Kilicdaroglu filmed a campaign video in his humble kitchen, talking about everyday issues like the price of onions.
A vote was also held on Sunday to determine the composition of Turkey’s 600-member Parliament, although results for those seats are not expected until Monday. Parliament lost significant power when the country switched to a presidential system following a referendum backed by Mr Erdogan in 2017. The opposition has vowed to return the country to a parliamentary system.
Adding to the significance of this election for many Turks is that 2023 is the 100th anniversary of the country’s establishment as a republic after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. A national celebration is scheduled for the anniversary, on October 29, and the president will preside.
The election was also driven by issues that have long polarized Turkish society, such as the appropriate place for religion in a country committed to strict secularism. In his 11 years as prime minister and nine as president, Mr Erdogan has expanded religious education and eased rules restricting religious dress.
Derya Akca, 29, cited her desire to cover her hair as the main reason she supports Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party. “He defended my freedom to wear the hijab, which is the most important factor for me,” said Ms. Akca, who works in an Istanbul clothing store.
He remembers being so embarrassed after a college professor humiliated him in front of the class that he dropped out of school, a decision he now regrets. “I felt like an outsider,” he said. “Now I want to stay and fight.”
But elsewhere in the city, Deniz Deniz, co-owner of a bar popular with the city’s LGBTQ community, is concerned that the number of such establishments has dwindled over the past decade of Mr Erdogan.
“I really want to change, Mr. Deniz said. “I want a country where LGBT+ people are not rejected. I want a country that is egalitarian and democratic.
In Turkey’s southern region, which was devastated by a powerful earthquake in February that killed more than 50,000 people, many voters were angry at the government’s response at the ballot box.
“We had an earthquake and the government didn’t intervene,” said Rasim Dayanir, an earthquake survivor who voted for Mr. Kilicdaroglu. “But our minds were made up before the earthquake.”
Mr. Dayanir, 25, had fled the city of Antakya, which was heavily damaged by the earthquake, but returned with eight family members to vote on Sunday.
He stood in the middle of hundreds of voters who had lined up to vote in the primary school. Others cast their ballots in shipping containers that had been set up to replace damaged polling stations. Mr. Dayanir said that his uncle, aunt and other family members had died in the earthquake.
“We hope so,” he said. “We believe in change.”
Ben Hubbard reported from Ankara, and Gulsin Harman from Istanbul. This reporting was contributed by Elif Ince from Istanbul, Eastern Axis from Ankara and All named Kirac from Antakya.
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