Turkey’s longest serving leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing a tough time after he failed to secure majority in the recently held presidential elections. In what can be termed as Erdogan’s toughest polls in years, he faced strong competition from his main rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu, often regarded as Turkey’s Mahatma Gandhi.
New Delhi: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faced his most difficult election test in 20 years as he missed winning the polls all because of his main rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu who received 44.88% of the votes in Sunday’s voting. All eyes are now on runoff election to see if Kemal manages to unseat President Tayyip Erdogan after 20 years in power and halt his government’s increasingly authoritarian path.
On the other hand, incumbent President Erdogan received 49.51% of the votes, while the third candidate, Sinan Ogan, received 5.2%. A May 28 runoff between Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu has been confirmed to decide who becomes Turkey ’s next president.
The shock came for Turkey’s longest-serving leader as opinion polls before the election gave Kilicdaroglu a slight lead, with two polls on Friday showing him above the 50 per cent threshold needed to win outright.
Following Sunday’s election, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country showed it has an “advanced democratic culture”.
“With the maturity it showed yesterday, Turkey has shown that it is one of the countries with the most advanced democratic culture in the world,” Erdogan said in a tweet on Monday. He said that he will emerge victorious in the May 28 runoff.
