Three candidates are vying this time for the chair of the head of state: the outgoing president of the republic, the candidate of the Republican Alliance Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the representative of the opposition bloc People’s Alliance, the leader of the Republican People’s Party Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, as well as former MP Sinan Ogan, appointed by the right-wing bloc “ATA Alliance”. A few days ago there were four contenders, but on May 11, three days before the elections, the leader of the Fatherland Party, Muharrem Ince, decided to give up the fight and withdrew his candidacy.
Erdogan and Kılıçdaroglu are seen as the main contenders, polls show they have roughly equal support. Pollsters predicted Ogan could garner up to 4% of the vote, increasing the odds that none of the frontrunners will receive more than 50% of the vote. In this case, the second round of presidential elections will take place on May 28, in which the winner will be determined by a simple majority of votes. However, Erdogan and Kılıçdaroglu expressed confidence in their victory in the first round.
As for the parliamentary elections, the Turks will have to decide which parties will sit in the Turkish Grand National Assembly over the next five years. According to the Constitution, parliamentary elections in the republic are held using elements of majority and proportional systems: party candidates are elected according to party lists, and independents – by simple majority. To enter the Grand National Assembly, a party or coalition must win at least 7% of the vote. This time, 24 political parties (they are united in five blocs) and 151 independent candidates were vying for the 600 seats in the legislature. As expected, the main struggle will be between the ruling coalition “Republican Alliance” and the main opposition bloc “People’s Alliance”.
It should be noted that in Turkey more than 64 million people have the right to vote (with a population of 85 million). At the same time, soldiers and sergeants of the armed forces of the country, cadets of military educational institutions, as well as prisoners cannot participate in the vote. Incidentally, in recent years around 3.6 million Turks living abroad can also vote for one or the other candidate (half of them voted in advance between April 27 and May 9). A total of 191,884 ballot boxes will be installed today in the country and abroad.
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