Turkey’s national presidential election appeared to be headed for runoffs on Sunday as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fought to keep the leadership position he has held for 20 years.
He needs a majority to win, and his total with 95% of the nation’s ballot boxes counted was 49.6%. His main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, was closing in with 44.7% of the votes Sunday night.
![Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan walks out of a voting booth at a polling station in Istanbul, Sunday, May 14, 2023. Turkey is voting Sunday in landmark parliamentary and presidential elections that are expected to be tightly contested and could be the biggest challenge President Erdogan has faced in his two decades in power.](https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/figgC9_o0y_apMOh2_2Pf9zCn7E=/1024x0/filters:format(jpg):quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/2WB4TVSJCRA7FF4ZUOMOWXB6W4.jpg)
This made a May 28 runoff likely, the Associated Press reported. That will happen if neither candidate snags more than 50% of the votes. Votes from the 3.4 million eligible voters who live outside the country still had not been counted, making a runoff not entirely certain.
Opposition candidate Kilicdaroglu accused Erdogan’s camp, the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, of impeding results in opposition strongholds by calling for recounts.
“My dear nation, they are blocking the system with repeated objections at ballots where we have higher votes,” Kilicdaroglu told reporters in a statement at his party headquarters in Ankara, according to CNN.
“For example, there are persistent objections at 300 ballots in Ankara and 783 ballots in Istanbul. There is a ballot with six, and another with 11 objections.”
![A supporter of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stands outside the headquarters of AK Party in Istanbul, Turkey, Sunday, May 14, 2023. More than 64 million people, including 3.4 million overseas voters, were eligible to vote in the elections, which come the year the country will mark the centenary of its establishment as a republic — a modern, secular state born on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.](https://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/W2rmW2Tg6q8O_XsKOE5JCOBaaBc=/1024x0/filters:format(jpg):quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/QRKRDU2OJFEUDNEM5NXWVBZTJY.jpg)
The 69-year-old Erdogan has been either prime minister or president for two decades, growing more authoritarian as time went on. The race has been his toughest challenge yet, focusing on domestic issues including the economy, civil rights and the aftermath of the February earthquake in which more than 50,000 people perished.
World leaders are watching closely, as Turkey is a NATO ally that straddles Europe and the Middle East. Kilicdaroglu has promised a more democratic path.
Erdogan’s occasionally erratic economic leadership and his jockeying to put Turkey at the center of international negotiations has Western nations, as well as foreign investors, especially interested in the outcome.