ANKARA, Turkey — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey claimed victory on Sunday in the country’s presidential election, sending tremors that will be felt not just in Turkey but in Western and regional capitals — if it holds up.
The official results showed him with just under 53 percent of the vote, enough to spare him from going to a second round against his nearest challenger, Muharrem Ince.
In parliamentary races, Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party came in first, with 43 percent of the vote, the state news agency Anadolu reported, enough to retain a majority in alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party.
At 10:30 p.m., Mr. Erdogan gave a short televised speech to applauding supporters at the gates of Huber Pavilion, one of his residences in Istanbul. He claimed victory in both the presidential and parliamentary votes, saying that he had received unofficial results but that the outcome was clear.
“It seems the nation has entrusted me with the duty of the presidency, and to us a very big responsibility in the legislature,” he said. “Turkey has given a lesson of democracy with a turnout of close to 90 percent. I hope that some will not provoke to hide their own failure.”
He said he would travel to Ankara, the capital, to make his traditional victory speech from the balcony of his party headquarters.
An alliance of opposition parties that was doing its own count immediately cried foul, warning its supporters that the numbers were being manipulated and that they should disregard the figures released by Anadolu.
Bulent Tezcan, the vice chairman of the Republican People’s Party, said in a television interview that he had received official information from the Supreme Election Council that only 56 percent of ballots have been counted, not 93 percent, as Anadolu has reported. He said 40 million ballots still had to be counted.
“No one should start to cheer,” Mr. Tezcan warned. “The presidential election is certainly going to a second round. We will count the votes right through until the morning.”
He read out results that he said had been provided by the Supreme Election Council, showing Mr. Erdogan leading with 51.7 percent and Mr. Ince with 33.6 percent, with 39 percent of ballots counted.
By its count, the Republican People’s Party put Mr. Erdogan at 53 percent in the presidential race and Mr. Ince at 30 percent, with 47 percent of the votes counted.
That party and another opposition party, the Good Party, ran independent counting centers to tabulate results sent in by 100,000 volunteers from every polling station in the country, in an unprecedented effort to monitor the count and prevent fraud.
In the parliamentary race, Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party slipped to 42 percent, but together with its Nationalist Movement Party alliance partner appeared to retain a majority, with 54 percent.
The opposition count showed a similar result, with Mr. Erdogan’s party at 43 percent and his alliance securing 55 percent, but with far fewer votes counted.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Erdogan cast his vote in Istanbul with his family. “Turkey with this election is virtually making a democratic revolution,” he told journalists at the polling station.
The election is seen in large measure as a referendum on his rule, with many voters expressing concerns about what they say is his growing authoritarian streak and a struggling economy, which they blame on corruption and mismanagement.
Mr. Erdogan’s anti-Western drift has raised alarms among Turkey’s putative allies, with potentially grave consequences for cooperation within NATO, security in Iraq and Syria, and control of immigration flows into Europe.
Turkey has continued to cooperate with its Western partners on counterterrorism efforts, but Mr. Erdogan has tested the NATO alliance by drawing closer to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, to the point of buying an advanced Russian missile defense system and planning a Russian-built nuclear reactor in Turkey.
There were scattered reports of violence. Good Party officials said a party official had been shot and killed, and two others injured, in a dispute at a polling station in Erzurum in eastern Turkey.
The pro-Kurdish opposition group made an official complaint of armed groups threatening voters and irregular mass voting in the southeastern town of Suruc, near the Syrian border.
Anticipating government fraud, Mr. Ince urged his supporters to keep an eye on the ballot boxes until every vote had been counted. “Do not ever leave the ballot boxes,” he said in comments to television cameras outside the Supreme Election Board headquarters in Ankara after polling stations closed. “Do not leave the ballot boxes without taking the results sheets with the original signatures.”
And in a comment apparently aimed at the losing side, he called for calm. “I do not want any intemperance about the results,” he said.
Mr. Erdogan called the election two months ago in hopes of scoring a big win that he maintained would be a turning point for the country, allowing him to create a stronger, more powerful state. But it was the fear of that consolidation of power, along with growing economic turmoil, that seemed to propel the opposition, which presented a unified front for the first time in years.
As the election approached, the opposition showed surprising strength, with Mr. Ince and other candidates attracting huge crowds as they warned about the country’s descent into authoritarianism. Polls showed them closing ground on Mr. Erdogan.
Fighting the juggernaut of Mr. Erdogan’s party machine, and under oppressive restrictions under a state of emergency, the opposition had aimed to at least weaken the president, either by forcing him into a runoff or by robbing his Justice and Development Party of a majority in Parliament.
By creating an alliance, the opposition parties allowed a small Islamist party to get around the 10 percent threshold, and collaborated behind the scenes to help the pro-Kurdish party pass the threshold. They fielded an army of volunteers to observe voting in polling stations after changes in the regulations banned independent election observers from entering polling stations.
Bekir Agirdir, founder of the polling firm Konda, predicted that Mr. Erdogan would struggle to rule the country: His constitutional changes to create an executive presidency in 2016 were approved narrowly, 51 percent to 49 percent.
“He cannot rule the remaining 49 percent,” Mr. Agirdir said in an interview before Sunday’s election. He suggested that Mr. Erdogan was bound to see a showdown eventually. “This is the rehearsal. The real election will be in two to three years’ time.”
Since a failed coup in July 2016, Mr. Erdogan has displayed a growing authoritarian streak, ruling by presidential decree and imposing a state of emergency. The new presidential system will codify the executive powers he has already been exercising to a large extent under the state of emergency.
Under the new system, the prime minister’s office will be abolished and the cabinet will be composed of presidential appointees rather than elected lawmakers. Parliament’s powers are reduced, including oversight of the budget.
When he came to power 15 years ago, Mr. Erdogan won wide support as a pro-European, moderate Islamist who supported democracy and economic liberalization. But over the years the earlier philosophy melted away and was replaced by a more personal and dictatorial rule, particularly after the coup. Along the way, he either abandoned or alienated many of his allies.
He made an alliance with the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party for the parliamentary elections and imprisoned many of his critics, including thousands of Kurdish politicians and activists, members of civil society organizations, and Islamists accused of being followers of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric whom Turkish leaders accuse of organizing the coup attempt.
Mr. Erdogan makes no secret of his intention to become the country’s longest-ruling leader, after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic. Under the constitutional changes, he can run for a second term as president — and a third, if he were to call an early election — opening the possibility that he could stay in office beyond 2030.
Yet the impressive economic growth that has buoyed much of his 15 years in power has all but disappeared. Turkey has accumulated significant foreign debt, direct foreign investment has plunged and the Turkish lira has lost 20 percent of its value this year.
That may make Mr. Erdogan more careful about picking fights with the West, but it could also spell growing unrest and political challenges at home against a newly energized and unified opposition.
Many in the opposition saw the campaign as a final chance to save democracy. “We are crossing the last bridge before it falls,” said Burcu Akcaru, a founder of the new Good Party. “Then we leave the country.”
In a campaign speech recorded in prison, the Kurdish politician Selahattin Demirtas urged Turks to vote against Mr. Erdogan in both presidential and parliamentary elections, encouraging them to grab an opportunity before entering a “dark and obscure tunnel.”
“What you go through nowadays is only a trailer of the one-man regime. The most frightening part of the movie hasn’t even started yet,” he warned. “Everything will be arranged in accordance with the desire, pleasure and interests of one man. You will feel unable to breathe in a regime of fear and despair; you will feel like you are strangled.”
Source : Nytimes
