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Recep Tayyip Erdogan remains President for another five years. The opposition alliance also failed in the run-off election in its attempt to oust the long-term president from power. According to the preliminary result, Erdogan received 52 percent of the vote.
Cheering late into the night among supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Here in Istanbul as well as in the rest of the country, and especially in the metropolitan suburbs and in the conservative Anatolian provinces, where the Turkish president has his most loyal supporters.
Even before the electoral authorities announced the provisional result in his favour, the President appeared in a victory pose in Istanbul. Around midnight, Erdogan then appeared in front of the crowd at the presidential palace in the capital Ankara.
Solidarity and unity for the country
Nobody lost. All of Türkiye won. Erdogan called on the country for solidarity and unity. It is time to put the conflicts aside.
The 69-year-old pledged to keep investing in Turkey’s strength and independence. The challenges will be enormous. Turkey is in a deep economic crisis, with a loss of purchasing power and currency collapse. In the earthquake areas, the consequences of the catastrophe have to be dealt with.
Legend:
President Erdogan will have to overcome major challenges in his next term of office.
Keystone/Ali Unal
Erdogan will have to find answers to this after the two decades in which he has ruled Turkey without interruption. He began as a conservative reformer against the secular elites and generals who had dominated modern, so-called Kemalist Turkey since its founding in 1923.
But he took increasingly tough action against political opponents, and after the attempted military coup in 2016, Erdogan pushed through a new constitution that gives him enormous powers as president. The opposition tried to fight against this in this election, but in vain.
“The most unfair election campaign in years”
Challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu also made a brief statement in Ankara last night. The election campaign was the most unfair in years.
Legend:
Kilicdaroglu only indirectly admitted defeat.
Keystone/Ugur Yildirim
However, Kilicdaroglu only indirectly admitted his defeat. Other members of the opposition alliance became more explicit. So Meral Aksener, head of the nationalist Iyi party, which supported Kilicdarglu. She expressly congratulated Erdogan on the victory.
Two weeks ago, Erdogan’s AKP party had already won the majority of seats in parliament in the election. However, only together with their most important ally, the ultra-nationalist party MHP.