Turkey’s election authority announces official results of runoff vote

Turkey’s election authority, the Supreme Election Board (YSK), has announced the official results of a runoff election held on May 28 that confirms President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s win, garnering 52.18 percent of the nationwide vote.

Turkey held parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14. While Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the majority of seats in parliament, a runoff to elect the president had to be held two weeks later because none of the candidates managed to surpass the 50 percent threshold required for an outright victory.

According to the YSK, Erdoğan’s main rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who was nominated by an opposition bloc of six parties, received 47.82 percent of the nationwide vote.

Erdoğan received 27,834,589 votes, which secured him yet another five years as head of state, while Kılıçdçaroğlu received 25,504,724 votes.

Erdoğan won the election despite the prevailing belief that he was losing popularity because of high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis as well as the government’s poor response to two powerful earthquakes that hit the country in February.

YSK President Ahmet Yener said the official results of the runoff election were sent to the Official Gazette to be published.

Yener said objections to the results of the elections were accepted between May 29 and 31 before the official results were announced on Thursday.

International observers representing the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said in a statement on Monday that the second round of the presidential election in Turkey was well run but that media bias and ongoing restrictions to freedom of expression created an unlevel playing field and contributed to an unjustified advantage of the incumbent, Erdoğan.

Yener said 52,093,375 people in Turkey and 1,930,000 overseas voters cast votes in the runoff election. The turnout among voters in Turkey was 85.72 percent, while it stood at 56.34 among overseas voters.

Erdoğan will take his oath of office in parliament on Saturday and will announce his new cabinet at that time.