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Turkey awaits presidential election results as Erdogan's leadership hangs in balance

Pre-election polls gave a slight lead to Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the joint candidate of a six-party opposition alliance

Polls closed on Sunday in Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 20-year leadership grappling with economic turmoil and the erosion of democratic checks-and-balances hung in the balance after a strong challenge from an opposition candidate.

The election could grant Erdogan, 69, a new five-year term or unseat him in favour of the head of an invigorated opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who has promised to return Turkey to a more democratic path. If no candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the vote, the race will be determined in a May 28 run-off.

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

Opinion surveys indicated the increasingly authoritarian leader entered the election trailing a challenger for the first time. Erdogan has ruled Turkey as prime minister or president since 2003.

Pre-election polls gave a slight lead to Kilicdaroglu, 74, the joint candidate of a six-party opposition alliance who leads the centre-left, pro-secular Republican People’s Party, or CHP.

Voting began at 8am (0500 GMT) and closed at 5pm (1400 GMT). Under Turkey’s election custom, news organisations are barred from reporting partial results until an embargo lifts at 9pm (1800 GMT). There are no exit polls.

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. Voter turnout in Turkey is traditionally strong, reflecting citizens' continued belief in democratic balloting.

Yet Turkey has seen the suppression of freedom of expression and assembly under Erdogan, and it is wracked by a steep cost-of-living crisis that critics blame on the government’s mishandling of the economy.

Turkey is also reeling from the effects of a powerful earthquake that caused devastation in 11 southern provinces in February, killing more than 50,000 people in unsafe buildings. Erdogan’s government has been criticised for its delayed and stunted response to the disaster, as well as a lax implementation of building codes that exacerbated the casualties and misery.

Internationally, the elections were being watched closely as a test of a united opposition’s ability to dislodge a leader who has concentrated nearly all state powers in his hands.

Erdogan has led a divisive election campaign, using state resources and his domineering position over media to woo voters.

In a bid to secure support from citizens hit hard by inflation, he has increased wages and pensions and subsidised electricity and gas bills, while showcasing Turkey’s homegrown defence and infrastructure projects.

He also extended the political alliance of his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, with two nationalist parties to include a small leftist party and two marginal Islamist parties.

Kilicdaroglu’s six-party Nation Alliance pledged to dismantle an executive presidential system narrowly voted in by a 2017 referendum. The opposition alliance also promised to restore the independence of the judiciary and the central bank and to reverse crackdowns on free speech and other forms of democratic backsliding under Erdogan.

The alliance includes the nationalist Good Party led by former Interior Minister Meral Aksener, a small Islamist party and two parties that splintered from the AKP, one led by a former prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, and the other by a former finance minister, Ali Babacan.

The country’s main Kurdish political party, currently Turkey’s second-largest opposition grouping, is supporting Kilicdaroglu in the presidential race. Erdogan's government in recent years has targeted the party's leaders with arrests and lawsuits.

People were seen walking to schools acting as polling stations on a warm spring day in much of the country, and forming long lines outside classrooms. Officials in Ankara said they expected turnout to be even higher than previous years.

The lines were partly due to problems many voters encountered trying to fold bulky ballot papers — they featured 24 political parties competing for seats in parliament — and to fit them into envelopes along with the ballot for the presidency.

“It’s important for Turkey. It's important for the people,” Necati Aktuna, a voter in Ankara, said. “I’ve been voting for the last 60 years. I haven’t seen a more important election that this one.”

Large crowds gathered outside the polling stations where Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu cast their votes.

“We have all missed democracy so much. We all missed being together,” Kilicdaroglu said after voting at a school in Ankara, where his supporters chanted “President Kilicdaroglu!"

“From now on, you will see that spring will come to this country," he said.

Erdogan said voting was underway “without any problems,” including in the earthquake-affected region where people were voting “with great enthusiasm and love.”

"It is my hope that after the evening's count ... there will be a better future for our country, our nation and Turkish democracy," he said.

Also running for president was Sinan Ogan, a former academic who has the backing of an anti-immigrant nationalist party. Another candidate, centre-left politician Muharrem Ince, dropped out of the race on Thursday following a significant drop in his ratings, the country's election board said his withdrawal was invalid and votes for him would get counted.

“God willing it will be a democratic election,” he said. “May it be beneficial in the name of our country.”