Supreme Election Board (YSK) President Ahmet Yener announced in a press statement that Turkey would hold a presidential runoff on May 28 since initial results showed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan failing to secure a first-round win against his secular rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, local media reported on Monday.
Citing unofficial and temporary results in the May 14 presidential election, Yener said Erdoğan received 49.51 percent of the vote, while the main opposition bloc’s candidate Kılıçdaroğlu garnered 44.88 percent.
He added that Sinan Oğan, the candidate of a bloc of four far-right parties, and Homeland Party (MP) leader Muharrem İnce, who withdrew from the race last week, received 5.17 percent and 0.44 percent of the vote, respectively.
“There are 35,874 votes being added [to the results] from abroad. … If all of them were cast for Mr. Erdoğan, his vote would be 49.54 percent, and if they were for Mr. Kılıçdaroğlu, he would receive 44.85 percent, meaning that no candidate has won the right to be elected [president],” Yener said.
It is a constitutional requirement to garner 50 percent of the vote plus one additional vote — known locally as the “50+1” rule — for election to the position of president in Turkey.
Yener said the second round of the presidential race would be held between Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu on May 28, adding that the candidates had already begun campaigning.