Recep
Tayyip Erdogan looks set to become Turkey’s next president. Initial election
results put the current prime minister on 52 percent. He has promised a "
new Turkey" - something his opponents fear.
Deutsche Welle, 10 Aug 2014
Erdogan,
who led all through the count, won 52 percent of Sunday's vote, according to
Turkish media. With his victory apparently certain, the pious prime minister
headed to the historic Eyup Sultan Mosque in Istanbul for prayer.
"I
hope that the final whistle will be blown by the referee, but the stands have
made their decision," Erdogan said on Sunday. "The people have shown
their will."
In a
message posted to Twitter, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag wrote that
"Erdogan has become the first president elected by the people."
Ekmeleddin
Ihsanoglu, the 70-year-old joint candidate of the two largest opposition
parties, had just under 39 percent of ballots. Selahattin Demirtas, a
41-year-old human rights lawyer who ran on a center-left platform for the
Peoples' Democratic Party and earned the nickname "the Kurdish
Obama," garnered 9 percent. Erdogan's two opponents had lagged far behind
in pre-election surveys.
‘An
important decision'
After
casting his ballot in Istanbul on Sunday, Erdogan, who was barred by party
rules from seeking a fourth term as prime minister, told reporters that
"the people are making an important decision ... for Turkish democracy,
for the future of our country."
Ahead of
Sunday's election, critics feared that a victory by Erdogan, of Turkey's
Justice and Development Party (AKP), could lead to more authoritarianism and
less freedom of expression. Erdogan had a testy relationship with Turkish
journalists who did not toe the AKP line in the last days of the election.
The prime
minister's opponents had accused him of undermining the secular legacy of the
country's founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who established a strict
separation between religion and politics when he forged the new state from the
ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Since becoming prime minister in 2003, Erdogan has
faced little opposition in his efforts to remake Turkey to his liking.
"A
ballot paper with only one name does not represent the democracy," the
opposition candidate Ihsanoglu said on Sunday as he cast his ballot in
Istanbul. "It does not suit Turkey." He called the campaign
"unfair, disproportionate," but nonetheless predicted that the votes
of the "silent masses" would help him to victory.
State-run
media put Sunday's turnout at 76 percent of the electorate; 89 percent voted in
March's local elections. For the first time, Turkish citizens living abroad
could vote from their countries of residence, and many turned out to do so in Germany.
mkg/ipj (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)
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