Turkish President Recep Erdogan called on the Turks to turn out to vote, stressing that there are no problems in the electoral process in all parts of the country. Erdogan said while casting his vote today (Sunday): We hope that the outcome of the elections will be good for the future of the country. He revealed that he is following the presidential and parliamentary elections from Istanbul, not from Ankara. Erdogan, who leads the ruling Justice and Development Party, cast his vote, accompanied by his wife, at the headquarters of his electoral committee in the Uskudar district of Istanbul.
While the Turkish opposition candidate who leads the Republican People’s Party, Kamal Kilicdaroglu, voted in the Turkish capital, Ankara, among his supporters. Kilicdaroglu urged the Turks to turn out to vote, and said that Turkey longed for democracy.
It is expected that the non-final results of the Turkish presidential and parliamentary elections will be announced at midnight after the polls close, and the head of the Turkish Supreme Electoral Commission, Ahmed Yanar, announced that the commission will announce the non-final results of the elections on the evening of the voting day itself, as usual.
A number of Turkish media outlets, including the Anadolu Agency and the official Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT), broadcast the results successively, according to the data they receive from the Elections Commission.
It is expected that the counting of votes will begin immediately after the end of the voting process. The results will be issued separately from the Turkish states, before the Supreme Elections Authority issues the unofficial results, at around midnight.
Turks vote in more than 191,000 ballot boxes in 81 states in order to elect a new president for the country for a period of 5 years, and to choose the 600 members of Parliament. About 60 million 697 thousand 843 voters cast their votes, of whom 4 million 904 thousand 672 voters will vote for the first time.
The candidate of the People’s Alliance is competing for the presidency, the current President Erdogan, who aspires to win a second and final term after the country’s transition to the presidential system, and the candidate of the People’s Alliance, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, Kamal Kilicdaroglu, and the candidate of the Grandfathers’ Alliance, Sinan Ogan.
The candidate of the Country Party, Muharram Ince, decided (Thursday) to withdraw from the presidential race, while 24 political parties are competing for parliamentary seats. Twenty-four political parties and 151 independent candidates are running in the general election race. While some political parties entered the elections in 5 different coalitions, namely, the Public Alliance, the Ummah Alliance, the Grandfathers Alliance, the Labor and Freedom Alliance, and the Union of Socialist Forces. The Turkish Supreme Elections Commission took various measures in the 11 states affected by the February 6, 2023 earthquake, to conduct the elections properly in designated centers.
