The official news agency is currently giving Recep Tayyip Erdogan the lead, but his opponent says the opposite… A battle of figures began this Sunday evening in Turkey around the first counting of votes for the presidential election. The outgoing president is credited with 52.4% of the votes ballots after the counting of more than 43.8% of the ballots, according to the official Anadolu agency, accused of being in the pay of power by the opposition. His opponent for the presidency, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, boss of the CHP has also ured to be in the lead on Twitter. The third candidate Sinan Ogan, a dissident from the nationalist MHP party, would be around 5% of the vote.
The CHP Mayor of Istanbul Ekrem Imamoglu, speaking at the party headquarters in Ankara and specifying that he was speaking “in the name of Kemal Kiliçdaroglu”, called on the citizens “to disregard the figures given by Anadolu”. “We do not believe Anadolu”, he said, news agency according to him “under artificial respirator since 2019” and which “has lost all respectability”. An allusion to the tutelage of power over the main major Turkish media. “We will not let our fellow citizens be fooled,” ured Ekrem Imamoglu, who had seen his election as mayor of Istanbul invalidated in 2019, before being confirmed with brilliance at the polls three months later.
The end of the count around 9 p.m.
The channel close to the CHP Halk TV broadcast figures on Sunday evening giving Kemal Kiliçdaroglu a slight lead, 47.71% against 46.5% for the outgoing president.
“Thank goodness the voting process was conducted in a way that befits our democracy. Now, as always, it’s time to hang on to the polls. Until the results are final, we continue to protect the will of our nation! “, wrote Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a tweet published after the closing of the polls at 5 p.m. (4 p.m. in France). Counting is scheduled to end around 9 p.m. The turnout, apparently high, has still not been disclosed.