Nail-Biter Turkish Election Goes to Round 2 as Majority Eludes Erdogan

[brooklynite]

Last edited Sun May 14, 2023, 10:13 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: New York Times

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s presidential election appeared on Sunday to be headed for a runoff after the incumbent, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, failed to win a majority of the vote, a result that left the longtime leader struggling to stave off the toughest political challenge of his career.

The outcome of the vote set the stage for a two-week battle between Mr. Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition leader, to secure victory in a May 28 runoff that may reshape Turkey’s political landscape.

With the unofficial count nearly completed, Mr. Erdogan received 49.4 percent of the vote to Mr. Kilicdaroglu’s 44.8 percent, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

But both sides claimed to be ahead.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/14/world/europe/turkey-erdogan-presidential-election.html

[dembotoz]

1. good lord can you imagine how trump would act if there was a run off

[Bev54]

2. Actually you have to be careful of the 94% counted, it was explained on CNN international

that 94% of the ballot boxes were opened, which I think means they are now counting, but only about 60% of the vote was actually counted.

[ColinC]

5. ...which sounds to me like Kilicdaroglu could still win outright.

I heard that Erdogan's people are challengin every ballot that they can just to manipulate perception by slowing the count as much as possible.

[Lucky Luciano]

3. "...continues to narrow as more big-city votes..."

It’s as if the entire world’s maladies have the rural people to blame.

The rural people seem to think only they are “the people” when they say they need to take the power back. The trouble is they don’t realize that their ultra narrow uniformed world view has other people besides them who should also be represented. They want mob rule (ochlocracy) because they think their mob mentality is what the vast majority want. They are so wrong…but those who use them as pawns find ways to rule as a minority.

[oldsoftie]

4. Dammit I was hoping there wouldnt be a runoff.

Erdogan needs to go

[LiberalLovinLug]

6. Me too

I was hoping for a big first ballot victory for Kilicdaroglu.

Which I knew was a long shot. Now that its this close, there is no way that Erdogan will lose. He will make sure of that. If its close enough that if he loses by a few votes, he will get away with a Jan 6th but with the army, and claim power by saying there was some kind of corruption with the vote.