Turkey elections: Erdogan fails to get 50%; second round of elections most likely on 28 May

Turkey is heading towards a second round of elections as the current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has failed to secure 50% of votes cast that would help him decisively extend his 20-year rule.

So far…Erdoğan’s rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, has scored 44.96% of the votes as per the latest figures, This is a disappointing outcome for him after late pre-election polls had shown him in the lead.

Kilicdaroglu’s camp had initially contested the vote count and claimed to be ahead.

Turkey’s first presidential run-off in the mostly Muslim but officially secular state’s 100-year history is planned for May 28.This election has been billed as the most important one in Turkey’s history with analysts claiming that the result will decide whether Turkey’s electorate would choose modernity ..or the traditional version of Islam.

For Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, this election is of massive historical significance.

It falls 100 years after the foundation of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s secular republic and, if Erdoğan wins, he will be empowered to put even more of his stamp on the trajectory of a geostrategic heavyweight of 85 million people.

The fear in the West is that he will see this as his moment to push toward an increasingly religiously conservative model, characterized by regional confrontationalism, with greater political powers centered around himself.

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