Erdogan leading with around 44% of Turkish votes counted
2 Min Read
The Turkish President is ahead of his rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu with 52.4 percent of the votes.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, center, and his wife Emine, left, prepare to cast their ballots at a polling station in Istanbul, Sunday, May 14, 2023 (Umit Bektas/Pool Photo via AP)
With around 44% of Sunday's election ballots counted, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was leading his secular competitor, according to state media, albeit the numbers were subject to significant change.
973 districts and 1,094 district election boards will hold a total of 191,885 ballot boxes to elect a new president and fresh members of parliament, who will serve a term of five years.
With 43.8 percent of the ballots counted, Erdogan has 52.4 percent of the vote, while opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu had 41.4 percent.
According to the Haberturk broadcaster, the People's Alliance, which includes the ruling Justice and Development Party, is obtaining 68% of the seats in parliament after 2.8% of the ballot boxes have been counted. The ruling party receives 48.6% of the vote, or 363 seats in parliament, and receives 67.9% of the vote and nearly 450 mandates with its coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party.
According to the broadcaster, the opposition Nation Alliance received more than 21% of the vote.
After 35.87% of the votes were tallied, Recep Tayyip Erdogan led with 53.17%, followed by Kamal Klçdarolu with 40.88%.
A combined total of over 64.1 million voters will vote both in the country and abroad, including around 4.9 million who will vote for the first time in Turkey. The number of imprisoned voters is 53,172.
For the first time in voting history, the visually impaired will have a template prepared for them and sent to each ballot box.
![In a 2021 interview with Frontline by former US special representative James Jeffrey, he says he had "engaged with [HTS] via backchannels while serving in President Trump’s State Department. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)](https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2024/12/21/b4a69f2e-8682-43e4-9d37-49482b304ab3/3.png?v=2&format=webp "In a 2021 interview with Frontline by former US special representative James Jeffrey, he says he had \"engaged with [HTS] via backchannels while serving in President Trump’s State Department. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)")
