Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his wife have been pictured voting in what, according to recent polls, will be the closest race in the country’s electoral history.
President Erdoğan, 69, and his wife Emine Erdoğan, 68, cast their ballots at a polling station in Istanbul, Turkey, in the country’s parliamentary and presidential elections on Sunday morning.
It comes as polls on Friday gave Erdogan’s main challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who leads a six-party coalition, a slight lead, showing he was above the 50 percent threshold needed to win the election.
Erdoğan, who has been in power for 20 years, has been accused by critics of leading Turkey, a country of 85 million people and a NATO member, down an authoritarian path and closer to dictatorship.
But President Erdoğan said in Istanbul: “We pray to the Lord for a better future for our country, our nation and Turkish democracy.”
President Erdoğan (right), 69, and his wife Emine Erdoğan (left), 68, cast their ballots Sunday morning at a polling station in Istanbul, Turkey, during the country’s parliamentary and presidential elections.
Erdoğan, who has been in power for 20 years, has been accused by critics of leading Turkey, a country of 85 million people and a NATO member, down an authoritarian path and closer to dictatorship. Pictured: Erdoğan greets supporters outside the polling station on Sunday
Meanwhile, a smiling Mr Kilicdaroglu, 74, voted in Turkey’s capital Ankara and emerged to the applause of the waiting crowd.
He said, “I offer my most sincere love and respect to all my citizens who go to the polls to vote. We all miss democracy enormously.’
About 61 million voters from Turkey’s 87 constituencies will go to the polls on Sunday.
Some 3.4 million eligible foreign voters – 1.5 million of them in Germany alone – are likely to have already voted.
The vote in parliament is a tense race between the People’s Alliance, made up of Erdoğan’s Islamist-rooted AK Party (AKP) and the nationalist MHP and others, and Kilicdaroglu’s Nation Alliance, made up of six opposition parties, including his secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) , founded by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Critics say Erdoğan has tightened control of most Turkish institutions and sidelined traditional liberals.
And according to a recent report, his government has rolled back Turkey’s human rights record by “decades.”
Meanwhile, a smiling Mr Kilicdaroglu (pictured), 74, voted in Ankara and came out to the applause of the waiting crowd
He said, “I offer my most sincere love and respect to all my citizens who go to the polls to vote. We all miss democracy so much’
However, Mr Erdoğan has dismissed those who claim he is turning Turkey into a dictatorship and said he will respect the results of the election.
He said, “If our nation decides to make such a different decision, we will do exactly what democracy requires and there is no other way.”
Erdogan added yesterday that he saw the elections as a “celebration of democracy for the future of our country.”
If no presidential candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, a second round will be held on May 28.