Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s main challenger pledged Sunday to restore democracy, after casting his ballot in the country’s most important election of modern times, Agence France-Presse reported.
“We all missed democracy,” Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition party told reporters. “You will see, God willing, spring will come to this country.”
Polling suggests that Kılıçdaroğlu, a 74-year-old former civil servant, has a chance of ending the more than two-decade rule of Erdoğan’s conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Kılıçdaroğlu leads the secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) and heads a disparate six-party opposition alliance, which spans Turkey’s cultural and religious divides and was forged with the sole aim of ousting Erdoğan.