Erdogan and Kiliçdaroğlu both claim to lead Turkey’s election results

Early returns from Turkey’s national elections were President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a solid lead after some 47 percent of the ballot boxes were counted, said the Turkish state-run news agency, while the main challenger to the long-time leader denied the numbers that showed him behind.

Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey as prime minister or president for two decades, had 52.2 percent of the vote in the partial count, compared to 41.9 percent obtained by opposition leader Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, Anadolu Agency reported.

During the election, opinion polls showed that the increasingly authoritarian Erdogan was only trailing his opponents. The race looks set to be the toughest re-election bid of the Turkish leader’s 20-year rule in a NATO member state.

With partial results showing otherwise, members of Kiliçdaroğlu’s center-left, pro-secular Republican People’s Party, or CHP, disputed Anadolu’s numbers, contending the state agency was biased in favor of Erodgan.

“We are ahead,” tweeted Kiliçdaroğlu, 74, who is the candidate of the six-party opposition alliance.

The election could give Erdogan, 69, another five-year term or see him unseated by Kiliçdaroğlu, who campaigned on a promise to return Turkey to a more democratic path and to restore an economy battered by high inflation and currency devaluation.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, the winner will be determined in a run-off on May 28.

Inflation, earthquakes, war in Ukraine leading to the elections

Voters also elect lawmakers to fill Turkey’s 600-seat parliament, which has lost much of its legislative power under executive president Erdogan. If his political alliance wins, Erdogan can continue to rule without much restriction. The opposition has promised to return Turkey’s governance system to a parliamentary democracy if it wins both presidential and parliamentary ballots.

More than 64 million people, including 3.4 million overseas voters, are eligible to vote. This year marks 100 years since Turkey became a republic – a modern and secular country born from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.

Voter turnout in Turkey is traditionally strong.

Under Erdogan, Turkey has seen a crackdown on freedom of expression and assembly. The country has been hit by a cost-of-living crisis that critics blame on the government’s mismanagement of the economy. The president insisted on low interest rates for inflation, and he pressured the central bank to reflect his views.

The latest official statistics put inflation at about 44 percent, down from around 86 percent. The price of vegetables became a campaign issue for the opposition, which used the onion as a symbol.

Turkey is also reeling from the effects of a powerful earthquake that devastated 11 southern provinces in February, killing more than 50,000 people in unsafe buildings. Erdogan’s government has been criticized for its response to the disaster and delays, as well as the implementation of building codes that have caused casualties and suffering.

Internationally, the election is seen as a test of the united opposition’s ability to oust a leader who has concentrated almost all of the country’s power in his hands and increasingly exerted influence on the world stage.

Erdogan, along with the United Nations, helped mediate a deal that allowed Ukrainian grain to reach the rest of the world despite Russia’s war in Ukraine. The agreement is due to expire in a few days, and Turkey hosted talks last week to keep it alive.

The war in Ukraine inspired Finland and Sweden to request NATO membership as a safeguard against potential Russian aggression. But Erdogan has held up Sweden’s accession to the alliance and demanded concessions, contending that the nation is too lenient on pro-Kurdish groups and followers of US-based clerics that Turkey considers a threat to national security.