Turkey’s Erdogan faces second round in fevered race for presidency
With reporting from Paul Kirby and Orla Guerin in Ankara, Jonny Dymond in Istanbul and Anna Foster in Hatay province
With reporting from Paul Kirby and Orla Guerin in Ankara, Jonny Dymond in Istanbul and Anna Foster in Hatay province
Live Reporting
Edited by Jamie Whitehead
All times stated are UK
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Young voters could decide Turkey's future
Selin Girit
Reporting from Istanbul
"If Recep Tayyip Erdogan wins again, life will be a nightmare for all of us," said Perit, a 23-year-old Istanbul student, who was speaking in the days before the election.
He was jailed and spent almost two months in solitary confinement for taking part in a protest at the prestigious Bogazici University over the appointment of a pro-government dean.
Perit has voted only once before, and his friends Sude and Emru are among five million first-time voters who have known no other Turkish leader but Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Life for young people in Turkey has become increasingly difficult, Emru complained, pointing to soaring levels of inflation which are currently at 44% according to official figures.
"You can't afford to just study, you also have to get a full-time job to get by," he adds.
Read more here about young voters and their impact on the election.
Erdogan's challenger shows his anger
Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor in Ankara
This was not the soft-spoken, bookish Kemal Kilicdaroglu of before.
This time, he came across as angry, frustrated by what the opposition sees as blocking tactics by President Erdogan's AK Party.
"You are blocking the will of the people," he said, raising his voice in a brief, but powerful address. He didn't say who was trying to manipulate the outcome of the vote, but he clearly had the AKP in mind.
He cited Turkey's biggest two cities as AKP targets for these blocking tactics - detailing objections to 783 ballot boxes in Istanbul alone and hundreds more in the capital Ankara.
Kilicdaroglu won't win the presidency tonight. The question is how this will play out in the coming days.
We are here until every vote is counted - Kilicdaroglu
Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu has spoken for the first time in front of the cameras this evening as the counting of votes nears completion.
In what was a very short speech, he said the governing AK Party was blocking the system by filing objections to the results where Kilicdaroglu had a higher number of votes:
"Don’t block the will of the nation. Let the results come in and everyone know the results.
"The country doesn’t have any more patience for instability. You cannot manage the situation by manipulation, don’t be afraid of the will of the people."
He again called on party volunteers and officials to continue monitoring the count, saying:
Supreme Election Council says 69% of votes counted
The head of Turkey's Supreme Election Council (YSK), Ahmet Yener, has spoken for the second time tonight.
He says some 69.12% of the votes have now been counted.
He adds representatives of all political parties are monitoring how YSK officials work on the data coming from the ballot boxes and that there are no questions over the process.
Again, he hasn't given any preliminary results, adding: "In the coming hours, when we have the results from all the ballot boxes when they have all be opened, we will share them with the public."
Objections could delay final result
Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor in Ankara
While the chances of a second round become increasingly likely, the vote count has noticeably slowed down.
It's frustrating when all of Turkey is looking for a clear-cut result but the opposition says the reason is repeated objections by Erdogan's party to results where their opposition rival is ahead.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu says seven million ballots have been withheld from the counting process because of these objections, and they've all come in opposition strongholds. It's a tactic used by Erdogan's AK Party for the last seven or eight elections, he claims.
All it does is delay the result - an Erdogan party official said tonight that the deadline to register for a recount was Tuesday afternoon so it's clear this saga has some way to go.
What's been happening?
Let's take a step back and look at the broader picture.
After 20 years in power, Turkey's President Erdogan is facing his toughest challenge, in the form of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition's unity candidate.
At this stage of the count, both sides are claiming to be ahead - partly in an attempt to keep control of the narrative, as our correspondent Jonny Dymond in Istanbul points out.
The overall picture is unclear, with rival news agencies reporting different numbers.
However, the state news agency Anadolu's latest figures, for the first time this evening, show Erdogan dipping below the 50% threshold needed to win the election outright.
If neither man gains half the vote at the end of the night, we go to a run-off.
There are also millions more votes to be counted, so much to play for.
Stick with us for the latest.
Ankara mayor says second round is 'highly possible'
The mayors of Ankara and Istanbul - two prominent figures from the opposition CHP - have held another press conference.
Ankara Mayor Mansur Yavas says: "There is a short time left to get all the results. When we see them, we will see our leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu finishing this round as the front-runner.
"I should also say that there is a high possibility that there is going to be second round."
He says CHP officials at polling stations put Kilicdarorlgu on 47.7% and Erdogan on 45.8%, based on about 69% of votes counted.
Erdogan heads off to Ankara
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been watching the results in Istanbul, has left his house in the city, waving at the crowds waiting for him as he did so.
He got into his car and headed off to Ankara, the capital city from where he runs the country.
Erdogan is registered to vote in Istanbul, so he always votes in the city, watches the election results there for a few hours, and then goes off to Ankara later in the night to meet his party's senior officials.
He then gives a speech from AK Party headquarters in case of victory.
Stay with us to see if he will make such a speech tonight.
Question now is whether contest will go to second round
Jonny Dymond
Reporting from Istanbul
All night the direction of travel has been clear: the gap between the president and his challenger has closed, the lead of Recep Tayyip Erdogan narrowing as more and more ballots were counted.
The night has been punctuated by proclamations from the parties that they are in the lead; the opposition in particular is keen to keep its observers at polling stations, worried that without them there may be foul play.
The big question now is whether this contest will go to a second round. The president’s share of the vote has slipped below 50%, the target for a first-round win.
The challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, has seen his share creep up. There are still millions of votes to be counted. His party insists that he has won.
Turkey could still be heading into a fortnight of instability as president and challenger compete for a second-round victory.
Erdogan's vote share dips below 50% - state news agency
Turkey's state news agency AA says Erdogan's share of vote has fallen below the threshold needed to win the election in the first round - 49.86% with more than 90% of the votes counted.
Kilicdaroglu is in second position with 44.38% of the votes, according to AA.
If none of the candidates get at least 50% of the votes, there will be a second round on 28 May.
There are still more than 14 million votes left to be counted.
Turkey's other opposition parties claim victory
The political allies of opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu have taken to social media to call on their supporters “not to lose hope”.
Pro-Kurdish HDP’s representative in the Supreme Election Council, Mehmet Rustu Tiryaki, has said: "The president will change. AA [the Anadolu Agency] is working like a propaganda machine for the AKP [Erdogan's party]."
The head of the Workers' Party, Erkan Bas, has also said Kilicdaroglu could still win in the first round, and called on supporters to keep monitoring the ballot boxes.
Temel Karamollaoglu, the head of the religious Felicity Party who is in an alliance with the CHP, said: "Change is coming soon."
The head of the Good Party, one of the biggest parties in the opposition alliance, Meral Aksener, posted on Twitter: "We are here until sunrise, we are winning."
WATCH: Erdogan supporters outside AK Party HQ
Video content
Supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have gathered outside AK Party headquarters in Istanbul after today's polls closed.
Do votes from abroad matter?
Ece Göksedef
Live reporter
As an expat, I was able to vote in London last week, and saw a crowd that I wasn’t expecting at a building rented in the capital especially for voting purposes.
There, I spoke to the mother in a family of four who told me that despite the problems in Turkey, she voted for Erdogan.
"As a woman with a headscarf, he gave me lots of freedom. Even though I live here now, I cannot forget that,” she said.
Her daughter, wearing a headscarf too, said: “Come on Mum. It's an old story. No one will reverse your gains. I want to feel the change [of government] when I am back in my country.”
“Sorry Mum, but I agree with my sister,” added her son.
Some 3.5 million out of 64 million voters live outside Turkey, and turnout abroad is usually around 50%, according to Turkey’s Supreme Election Council.
By Tuesday, it had reached more than 53% (which does not include votes cast at border points where voting is allowed until polls close on Sunday).
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AKP has long been known for its successful campaigns abroad and is usually the most popular party for Turkish voters outside of the country's borders.
Opinion polls predict that an increase in turnout means opposition candidates will receive more support this time.
More than 47% of the votes counted - Supreme Election Council
The head of Turkey's Supreme Election Council, Ahmet Yener, has made a very short statement to journalists in front of the council's building, giving the latest official results.
He says 47.08% of the votes in Turkey and 12.60% of the votes abroad have been counted so far.
He rejected the accusations that the council was slowing down the release of official results.
He didn't answer questions on which candidate was leading.
Earlier, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu criticised the council for failing to provide the results on time.
Kilicdaroglu calls on election body to provide data from big cities
Opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu takes to Twitter to call on opposition officials to continue to monitor ballot boxes across the country.
He also calls on the Supreme Election Council to publish results from the big cities:
"We won't sleep tonight. I am warning the Supreme Election Council, you have to provide the data from the cities."
Millions of votes yet to be counted
According to the state news agency Anadolu, more than 84% of the ballot boxes have been opened, and around 45 million votes have been counted.
The number of Turkish nationals eligible to vote is more than 64 million.
It means that more than 18 million votes are yet to be counted - that is around one third of the total number of votes. And these votes will be coming mostly from big cities.
We don't know how many of the votes are invalid and how many people didn't vote, but we know that the turnout is at a record high, based on official statements.
Erdogan makes first comment on elections
In his first public comments since the polls closed, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said hurrying to announce election results while the counting goes on would mean stealing "people's will".
Writing on Twitter, he said: "While the election was held in such a positive and democratic atmosphere and the vote counting is still going on, trying to announce results hastily means usurping the national will."
This appears aimed at the opposition for saying that its leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu was in the lead when votes had only been partially counted:
Erdogan also thanked Turkish voters for taking part in the election, and called on his party officials not to leave the ballot boxes until the counting was final.
The latest numbers are in
We keep hearing different figures from the main two news agencies in Turkey.
State news agency Anadolu (AA) says more than 80% of votes have been counted, and, according to them, President Erdogan is ahead with 50.4% of the votes.
Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu is in second place with 47.7%, the agency says.
Meanwhile, the privately owned Anka says 78% of the votes around the country have now been counted and, according to them, Erdogan has 48.5% of the votes, while Kilicdaorlgu has 45.7% so far.
The gap between the two frontrunners is closing slowly as votes in the big cities with large populations are being taken into account.
In pictures: Turkey votes
Millions of Turks have been voting today in presidential and parliamentary elections across the country.
Both sides claim to be ahead - and want to keep hold of the narrative
Jonny Dymond
Reporting from Istanbul
Both the governing AK Party and the opposition say they are ahead. They can’t both be right. But in one sense, it’s not even important - there are still lot of votes to be counted and the ones that have been counted so far may not be a fair representation of the overall vote.
So why the claim and counter-claim?
Both sides want to keep hold of the narrative in a country where recently election counts have been challenged - or the reporting of the numbers has simply stopped when it went against the governing party.
And the opposition wants to make sure that its observers stay at the polling stations keeping an eye on the count - if they think the night is lost, they might be tempted to drift away.
The body language of the opposition spokesmen is pretty relaxed and pretty confident. They are either good actors or they truly believe that their man Kemal Kilicdaroglu is in with a shout.