Results of Turkish Presidential election have started coming in after polls closed, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan leading with 49.6 per cent of total votes cast.
According to poll results, published by state-run Anadolu Agency, Erdogan’s AKP party is leading with 49.6 per cent.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu of CHP is following with 44.7 per cent of total votes cast while Sinan Ogan is in distant third place with 5.3 per cent, Anadolu Agency reported.
Ahmet Yener, the head of the Turkish election board
A candidate must secure 50 per cent of total votes cast to win the presidency seat.
If no candidate secures more than half the votes in the first round of voting, there will be a runoff.
The Turkish election umpire would conduct the runoff on May 28.
Meanwhile, AlJazeera quotes Ahmet Yener, the Head of the Turkish Election Board, as saying the board has entered 71.64 per cent of the votes within the country and 18.76 per cent of the votes from abroad into its system.
“A total of 69.12 percent of the votes have been entered in the system, he added.
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“There are no delays in the entry of data from the presidential and parliamentary elections,” Yener repeated.
Although, state media earlier reported that President Erdogan was in capital Ankara; he, however, made a surprise appearance in Istanbul.
He greeted supporters as he left his residence in the Istanbul district of Uskudar.
Kilicdaroglu alleged that the Erdogan camp keeps objecting to the results from certain ballot boxes to block the system.
“There are ballot boxes that have been objected to six times, 11 times,” he said, adding “You are blocking the will of Turkey”.
CHP candidate said AKP could not prevent what will happen through objections.
“We will not allow a fait accompli.”
Meanwhile, Turkey’s currency, Lira, has slipped to a fresh two-month low as financial markets kicked off trading in the wake of the elections with the race appearing headed for a run-off.
The currency weakened to 19.70 to the dollar before retracing some of its losses to 19.66, on track for its worst session since early November.
That was not far off the 19.80 level it hit in early March, following deadly earthquakes in February.
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