Turkey Elections: President Erdogan Wins Re-Election After Biggest Challenge Yet

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan beat back the greatest political challenge of his career on Sunday, securing victory in a presidential runoff that granted five more years to a mercurial leader who has vexed his Western allies while tightening his grip on the Turkish state.

His victory means Mr. Erdogan could remain in power for at least a quarter-century, deepening his conservative imprint on Turkish society while pursuing his vision of a country with increasing economic and geopolitical might. He will be ensconced as the driving force of a NATO ally of the United States, a position he has leveraged to become a key broker in the war in Ukraine and to enhance Turkey's status as a Muslim power with 85 million people and critical ties across continents.

Turkey's Supreme Election Council declared Mr. Erdogan the victor late Sunday. He won 52.1 percent of the vote; the opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu got 47.9 percent with almost all votes counted, the council said.

Video

Mr. Erdogan's supporters shrugged off Turkey's challenges, including a looming economic crisis, and lauded him for developing the country and supporting conservative Islamic values.

In many Turkish cities on Sunday night, they honked car horns, cheered and gathered in public squares to watch the results roll in and await his victory speech. Thousands gathered outside the presidential palace in Ankara, waiving red and white Turkish flags.

"It is not only us who won, it is Turkey," Mr. Erdogan said, to raucous applause. "It is our nation that won with all its elements. It is our democracy."

Mr. Kilicdaroglu told his supporters that he did not contest the vote count but that the election overall had been unfair, nevertheless. In the run-up to the vote, Mr. Erdogan tapped state resources to tilt the playing field in his favor.

During his 20 years as the country's most prominent politician — as prime minister beginning in 2003 and as president since 2014 — Mr. Erdogan has sidelined the country's traditional political and military elites and expanded the role of Islam in public life.

Along the way, he has used crises to expand his power, centering major decision making about domestic, foreign and economic policy inside the walls of his sprawling presidential palace. His political opponents fear that five more years at the helm will allow him to consolidate power even further.

Mr. Erdogan has offered few indications that he intends to change course in either domestic affairs or in foreign policy.

Image

Mr. Erdogan's unpredictability and frequent tirades against the West left officials in some Western capitals wondering whose side he was on in the war in Ukraine and privately hoping he would lose.

The Turkish leader condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, but refused to join Western sanctions to isolate President Vladimir V. Putin and instead increased Turkish trade with Moscow. He calls Mr. Putin "my friend" and has hampered NATO efforts to expand by delaying the admission of Finland and still refusing to admit Sweden.

During his campaign, Mr. Erdogan indicated that he was comfortable with his stance on Ukraine. He described Turkey's mediation at times between the conflict's warring parties as "not an ordinary deed." And he said he was not "working just to receive a 'well done' from the West," making clear that the desires of his allies will not trump his pursuit of Turkey's interests.

Mr. Erdogan operates on the understanding that "the world has entered the stage where Western predominance is no longer a given," said Galip Dalay, a Turkey analyst at Chatham House, a London-based research group.

That view has led regional powers like Turkey to benefit from ties with the West even while engaging with American rivals like Russia and China. The idea is that "Turkey is better served by engaging in a geopolitical balance between them," Mr. Dalay said.

Critics accuse Mr. Erdogan of pushing Turkey toward one-man rule. Election observers said that while this month's voting was largely free, he used state resources and his sway over the news media to gain advantage, making the wider competition unfair.

Image

Still, his opponents came closer to unseating him than ever before, and many expect he will try to prevent them from ever being able to do so again.

"Winning this election will give him ultimate confidence in himself, and I think he will see himself as undefeatable from now on," said Gulfem Saydan Sanver, a political consultant who has advised members of the opposition. "I think he will be more harsh on the opposition."

Mr. Erdogan's victory did not come easy.

Heading into the first round of voting on May 14, he faced a new coalition set on unseating him by backing a single challenger, Mr. Kilicdaroglu. Most polls suggested that the president's popularity had been eroded by a painful cost-of-living crisis that had shrunk the budgets of Turkish families and that he could even lose.

Mr. Erdogan's government also faced criticism that it had failed to respond quickly after powerful earthquakes in February killed more than 50,000 people in southern Turkey. But in the end, the disaster did not affect the election much.

Mr. Erdogan campaigned fiercely, meeting with earthquake victims, unleashing billions of dollars in government spending to insulate voters from double-digit inflation and dismissing Mr. Kilicdaroglu as unfit to herd sheep, much less run the nation.

In fiery speeches, Mr. Erdogan charmed his supporters with songs and poetry and painted his opponents as soft on terrorism.

Image

Although he fell short of the majority required to win outright in the first round, Mr. Erdogan came out in the lead with 49.5 percent of the vote to Mr. Kilicdaroglu's 44.9 percent, sending them to a runoff.

Over the years, Mr. Erdogan has merged himself with the image of the state, and he is likely to keep leveraging Turkey's position between the West, Russia and other countries to enhance his geopolitical clout.

His relations with Washington remain prickly.

The United States removed Turkey from a program to receive F-35 fighter jets in 2019 after Turkey bought an air-defense system from Russia.

And during the long war in neighboring Syria, Mr. Erdogan criticized the United States for working with a Syrian Kurdish militia that Turkey says is an extension of a Kurdish militant group that has fought the Turkish government for decades to demand autonomy.

Mr. Erdogan's interior minister, Suleyman Soylu, accused the United States of a "political coup attempt" to unseat Mr. Erdogan during the campaign. As evidence, Mr. Soylu cited comments from President Biden's own campaign, in which he criticized Mr. Erdogan as an "autocrat" and said the United States should support Turkey's opposition.

Diplomats acknowledge that Mr. Erdogan's ties to both Russia and Ukraine allowed him to mediate an agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea as well as prisoner swaps between the warring parties.

Image

Recently, Mr. Erdogan has worked to patch up relations with former regional foes, including Israel, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, in order to cool tensions and stimulate trade. After conciliatory moves by Turkey, Saudi Arabia deposited $5 billion in Turkey's central bank in March, helping shore up its sagging foreign currency reserves.

The Turkish leader has said he might meet with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria after years of supporting anti-Assad rebels. The goal: speeding the return of some of the millions of Syrian refugees in Turkey, a key demand of Turkish voters.

Mr. Erdogan, the son of a ferry captain who grew up in a tough Istanbul neighborhood and dreamed of playing professional soccer, retains the deep devotion of many Turks, who credit him with developing the country. Swift economic growth in the 2000s lifted millions of Turks out of poverty and transformed Turkish cities with new highways, airports and rail lines.

Mr. Erdogan also expanded the space for Islam in public life.

Turkey is a predominantly Muslim society with a secular state, and for decades women who wore head scarves were barred from universities and government jobs. Mr. Erdogan loosened those rules, and conservative women vote for him in large numbers.

He also has a habit of making smokers he encounters promise to quit — and getting it in writing. In March, his office displayed hundreds of cigarette packs signed by the people Mr. Erdogan had taken them from, including his own brother and a former foreign minister of Bulgaria.

He has also expanded religious education and transformed the Hagia Sophia, Turkey's most famous historic landmark, from a museum into a mosque.

Musa Aslantas, a bakery owner, listed what he considered Mr. Erdogan's most recent accomplishments: a natural gas discovery in the Black Sea, Turkey's first electric car and a nuclear power plant being built by Russia.

"Our country is stronger thanks to Erdogan," said Mr. Aslantas, 28. "He can stand up to foreign leaders. He makes us feel safe and powerful. They can't play with us like they used to."

Image

Over the past decade, Mr. Erdogan has deftly used crises to expand his authority.

He responded to street protests against his rule in 2013 by restricting freedom of expression and assembly and jailing organizers. After surviving a coup attempt in 2016, he purged the civil service and judiciary, creating openings for his loyalists. The next year, Mr. Erdogan pushed for a referendum that moved much of the state's power from the Parliament to the president — meaning him.

Over time, he has extended his sway over the news media. The state broadcaster gives him extensive positive coverage, and critical private outlets have been shuttered or fined, leading others to self-censor.

Mr. Erdogan's critics worry that he will find new ways to weaken democracy from within.

"The judiciary is controlled by the state, Parliament is controlled by the state and the executive is controlled by Erdogan," said Ilhan Uzgel, a former professor of international relations at Ankara University who was fired by presidential decree. "That means there is no separation of powers, which is the ABCs of a democratic society."

But Mr. Erdogan's most immediate challenge could be the economy.

Image

His insistence on lowering interest rates has exacerbated inflation that peaked at more than 80 percent annually last year, economists say, and expensive moves he made before the election added to the state's bills and depleted the central bank's foreign currency reserves. Without a swift change of course, Turkey could soon face a currency crisis or recession.

Economic trouble could lead more voters to seek change in the future, assuming Mr. Erdogan's foes can overcome their disappointment and mount another challenge.

"Erdogan has clear vision of what he wants for the country, and he has had that vision since he was very young," said Selim Koru, an analyst at the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey. "What people like about him is that he has not really compromised on that."

Safak Timur and Elif Ince contributed reporting from Istanbul.

May 28, 2023, 5:52 p.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

Erdogan closed his remarks by reciting a prayer-like poem by a nationalist Turkish poet, Arif Nihat Asya, that prompted an "Amen" from the tens of thousands gathered outside the presidential palace. Then, hand-in-hand with the leaders of the political parties in his alliance, Erdogan saluted his supporters.

May 28, 2023, 5:37 p.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

President Erdogan says he wants to put Turkey's "devastated cities" back on their feet after the earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in February. He also vowed to lower skyrocketing prices and compensate for the loss of wealth caused by inflation.

russia

BULGARIA

Black Sea

Istanbul

Ankara

TURKEY

SYRIA

IRAQ

200 miles

May 28, 2023, 5:11 p.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

President Erdogan started by singing with the boisterous crowd, and opens his remarks by thanking his supporters, who "one more time gave this duty to us." He adds, "It is not only us who won, it is Turkey."

May 28, 2023, 5:06 p.m. ET

Gülsin Harman

reporting from Ankara

President Erdogan has appeared at the presidential palace, where the crowd has waited nearly four hours for him to arrive. There are not as many people here as there were an hour ago, but the crowd is still strong.

May 28, 2023, 4:55 p.m. ET

Gulsin Harman

reporting from Ankara

It's just before midnight here in Ankara and a huge crowd is gathered outside the presidential palace, waiting for Erdogan to appear.

May 28, 2023, 4:44 p.m. ET

Image

Image

Image

At the final sundown before the first round of voting in the toughest election of his two-decade rule, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey visited Hagia Sophia for evening prayers — and to remind his voters of just what he had delivered.

For nearly a millennium the domed cathedral had been the epicenter of Orthodox Christianity. After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, it became one of the Islamic world's finest mosques. In the 1930s, the new Turkish republic proclaimed it a museum, and for nearly a century its overlapping Christian and Muslim histories made it Turkey's most visited cultural site.

President Erdogan was not so ecumenical: In 2020 he converted it back into a mosque. When Turks returned to the ballot box on Sunday for the presidential runoff, they were voting in part on the political ideology behind that cultural metamorphosis.

Join the crowds at the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque now, leaving your shoes at the new long racks in the inner narthex, and you can just about glimpse the mosaics of Christ and the Virgin, today discreetly sheathed with white curtains. Right at the entrance, in a simple frame, is a presidential proclamation: a monumental swipe at the nation's secular century, and an affirmation of a new Turkey worthy of its Ottoman heyday.

If the mark of 21st-century politics is the ascendancy of culture and identity over economics and class, it could be said to have been born here in Turkey, home to one of the longest-running culture wars of them all. And for the past 20 years, in grand monuments and on schlocky soap operas, at restored archaeological sites and retro new mosques, Mr. Erdogan has reoriented Turkey's national culture, promoting a nostalgic revival of the Ottoman past — sometimes in grand style, sometimes as pure kitsch.

May 28, 2023, 4:27 p.m. ET

Nailah Morgan

Earlier on Sunday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan handed out money to children before the polls closed. Such gift-giving is a tradition in Turkey.

Video

May 28, 2023, 3:55 p.m. ET

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's electoral victory on Sunday granted him another five-year term, giving him a mandate to remain in power until 2028.

That will mark a quarter-century for Mr. Erdogan as Turkey's top politician. He became prime minister in 2003 and president in 2014.

But will the leader who has already left a deep imprint on Turkish society and come to personify Turkish foreign policy be out in 2028?

Probably, but, according to Turkish legal scholars, it's complicated. Here's why:

The Turkish Constitution states that presidential terms are for five years and that "a person may be elected as the President of the Republic for two terms at most."

Mr. Erdogan was first elected president in 2014 when the country followed a parliamentary system of government.

In 2017, Mr. Erdogan pushed for a referendum that switched the country to a presidential system, moving many of the powers previously held by the legislative branch to the executive — Mr. Erdogan.

According to Mr. Erdogan and his supporters, that reset the term-limit clock, meaning that when he was re-elected in 2018 under the new system, it was counted as his first term.

Before this month's elections, some members of the political opposition cried foul, saying Mr. Erdogan was already in his second term and should not have been allowed to run. But the Supreme Election Council, which oversees elections, ruled with Mr. Erdogan, permitting his candidacy.

So, does that mean he'll be done in 2028? There is a loophole.

The Constitution states that if three-fifths of the parliament votes to hold new elections before a president's second term ends, "he may once again be a candidate." Technically, that means that Mr. Erdogan's party, if it can muster the votes, could give him an opportunity to run for another term.

If he won that, he would remain president until 2033.

In an interview with CNN this month, Mr. Erdogan said he did not intend to remain president past 2028 because that will mark the end of his second term.

"According to the current structure, the president can only be elected twice," he said. "With the election of the second term, this process will conclude auspiciously."

But still, many Turks have a hard time imagining a man who has held power for so long stepping away, and he has suggested at other times that he will remain involved in politics.

Outside of the presidency, Mr. Erdogan, 69, could continue to exercise influence in other ways.

He can remain the head of his ruling Justice and Development Party, the country's largest, and a future president could name him vice president.

If his party can gather the necessary votes in parliament or in a popular referendum to return the country to a parliamentary system, he could even become prime minister again.

May 28, 2023, 3:48 p.m. ET

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has vexed his Western allies while tightening his grip on power during 20 years as the country's paramount politician, won re-election on Sunday, according to election officials.

Mr. Erdogan overcame fierce competition from a newly unified political opposition and widespread anger among voters over the country's skyrocketing cost of living to secure another five-year term.

The Supreme Election Council of Turkey announced Mr. Erdogan's victory, citing preliminary results. Mr. Erdogan led his challenger, the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, by 2.2 million votes, the council's chairman, Ahmet Yener, said in a televised speech late Sunday. More than 99 percent of the ballot boxes had been counted, he said, and those remaining would not change the winner.

Mr. Erdogan will most likely interpret his victory as a validation of his legacy, which has included pursuing a more assertive role for the NATO member in global affairs and a vast consolidation of power in his own hands at home.

Addressing his supporters from atop a white bus near his home in Istanbul, Mr. Erdogan saluted the crowd, sang a song and thanked his supporters.

"We will be together until the grave," he said.

Mr. Kilicdaroglu told his supporters lthat he did not contest the results but said the election overall had been unfair. Mr. Erdogan used his incumbent power to tilt the playing field to his advantage during the campaign: He added billions of dollars in new spending to insulate voters from the immediate effects of inflation, increased civil servant salaries and repeatedly raised the minimum wage.

Meral Aksener, the head of the second-largest party in the opposition coalition that backed Mr. Kilicdaroglu, conceded the race.

"I congratulate Mr. Erdogan," she said. "The voters said what they had to say."

After he first became prime minister in 2003, Mr. Erdogan presided over tremendous economic growth that saw Turkish cities transformed and millions of Turks lifted out of poverty. Internationally, he was hailed as a new model of Islamist democrat who was pro-business and wanted strong ties with the West.

But over the past decade, criticism mounted at home and abroad. He faced mass protests against his governing style in 2013, became president in 2014 and survived a failed coup attempt in 2016. Along the way, he seized opportunities to sideline rivals and gather more power, drawing accusations from the political opposition that he was tipping the country into autocracy.

For Western powers, Mr. Erdogan's win means five more years of navigating a prickly relationship with a complicated partner.

While the United States and other NATO allies applauded Mr. Erdogan's condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he has frustrated them by pursing a closer relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, whom he called "my friend."

It is unlikely that he will change course after winning re-election, especially because of Turkey's deep reliance on Russian tourism and energy imports, and because Russia is building Turkey's first nuclear power plant near the Mediterranean coast.

Here's what to know:

• Once a new political force promising to clean up corruption, expand the economy and strengthen ties with the West, Mr. Erdogan is now a nearly all-powerful leader blamed for Turkey's sinking currency and criticized for undermining democracy. Read about his rise from a political outsider to Turkey's paramount leader.

• His victory on Sunday gives Mr. Erdogan a mandate to remain in power until 2028. What will happen then? He'll probably be out, according to Turkish legal scholars. But it's complicated. Read about why.

May 28, 2023, 3:44 p.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

The Supreme Election Council of Turkey announced President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's victory, citing preliminary results. As of now, Erdogan is ahead by 2.2 million votes, Ahmet Yener, the chair of the council, said in a televised speech. More than 99 percent of the ballot boxes have been counted, he said, and the remaining ones would not change the winner.

May 28, 2023, 3:32 p.m. ET

Image

In December 2002 at the White House, President George W. Bush greeted an up-and-coming politician from Turkey whose newly formed party had just won a surprising majority in Parliament.

"Welcome to the home of one of your country's best friends and allies," Mr. Bush told the politician, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "You are a strategic ally and friend of the United States."

Two months later, Mr. Erdogan became prime minister, rocketing him to the top of Turkey's political system and kicking off his two-decade tenure as his country's most powerful figure.

The runoff election Mr. Erdogan won on Sunday was in many ways a referendum on the dramatic changes that he has brought in 11 years as prime minister and nine as president.

Once a new political force promising to clean up corruption, expand the economy and strengthen ties with the West, Mr. Erdogan is now a nearly all-powerful leader blamed for Turkey's sinking currency and criticized for undermining democracy.

Mr. Erdogan, 69, grew up poor in a tough neighborhood in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, where his father was a ferry captain. He studied at Islamic schools usually intended for future clerics but went into politics and won a four-year term as Istanbul's mayor in 1994. Residents credited him with cleaning up the ancient, messy metropolis.

In 1997, he was removed from office and sentenced to 10 months in prison for inciting violence after he recited an Islamist poem at a rally. He ended up serving only four months but received a longer ban from politics.

When his Justice and Development Party, which he had helped found, won its unexpected parliamentary majority in 2002, it was the strongest showing to date by an Islamist political group in Turkey's staunchly secular political system. The next year, Mr. Erdogan's political ban ended and he became prime minister.

For about a decade, he and his party delivered on their promises of good governance and economic growth. Turkey's gross domestic product more than tripled, lifting millions out of poverty, and new airports, hospitals, highways and bridges sprung up across the country.

Internationally, Mr. Erdogan was lauded as an Islamist and pro-business democrat who could serve as a bridge between the West and the Muslim world.

But challenges arose. In 2013, protests against a construction project Mr. Erdogan had backed on the site of an Istanbul park escalated into mass anti-government demonstrations. Fearing instability, some foreign investors began withdrawing their capital.

Image

In 2016, two years after he became president, Mr. Erdogan survived a coup attempt that included a failed effort to kidnap him from a seaside resort. He responded by further centralizing power and sidelining critics — purging tens of thousands from the judiciary and state bureaucracy and replacing many of them with loyalists, restricting civil liberties and increasing his influence over the news media.

In 2017, he pushed for a constitutional referendum that ended Turkey's parliamentary system and transferred much of the state's power to the president, meaning him.

All along, he and his party remained formidable at the ballot box, and used their electoral mandate to promote a religiously conservative outlook. Mr. Erdogan expanded Islamic education and loosened regulations aimed at ensuring a secular state, including lifting a ban on head scarves for women in government jobs.

Many of his voters, who tended to be rural, devout and working class, looked to him as their defender from a secular elite that they felt looked down on them.

But Mr. Erdogan's honeymoon with the West, especially the United States, didn't last. He accused Washington of complicity in the attempted coup because the cleric he said had cooked up the plot lives in Pennsylvania. The cleric has denied the accusation.

After Mr. Bush, former Presidents Obama and Trump both welcomed Mr. Erdogan in the White House, but President Biden has not. And earlier this month, on the eve of the first round of presidential balloting on May 14, Mr. Erdogan accused Mr. Biden of working with Turkey's political opposition to unseat him.

May 28, 2023, 3:21 p.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

President Erdogan has left Istanbul for Ankara, to deliver his traditional victory speech from the presidential palace for the first time. In past years, he gave his victory speech from his party's headquarters.

May 28, 2023, 3:15 p.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

Meral Aksener, the head of the second-largest party in the opposition coalition, conceded the race to President Erdogan in a televised address. "I congratulate Mr. Erdogan," she said. "The voters said what they had to say."

May 28, 2023, 2:58 p.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

In a televised speech from his party headquarters in Ankara, the opposition's candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, didn't contest preliminary results that showed him behind by more than two million votes. Kilicdaroglu, who managed to unite a highly fragmented opposition, vowed to keep up the fight for democracy. "We have been through one of the most unfair election processes of the recent years," he said.

Image

May 28, 2023, 1:30 p.m. ET

Ben Hubbard

reporting from Istanbul

President Erdogan just claimed to have won Turkey's presidential runoff election, although neither the country's electoral commission nor the state-run media have announced a victor. Addressing supporters from atop a white bus outside of his home in Istanbul, Erdogan said, "We will be together until the grave."

Video

May 28, 2023, 1:01 p.m. ET

Gülsin Harman

reporting from Ankara

The Ankara headquarters for Turkey's largest opposition party is silent. The building is heavily cordoned off, and no supporters are gathering outside. Inside, party officials are nowhere to be seen.

Image

May 28, 2023, 12:49 p.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

President Erdogan had 54.5 percent of the vote with more than 26 million ballots counted, Ahmet Yener, the head of the Supreme Election Council, said in a televised announcement. More than 60 million votes were cast in the first round of balloting earlier this month.

May 28, 2023, 12:48 p.m. ET

Nimet Kirac

reporting from Kahramanmaras

The city center in Kahramanmaras has turned into a party, as residents gather in the streets to watch the election results on live television. Some four months ago, the city was devastated by earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey.

Video

May 28, 2023, 12:43 p.m. ET

Elif Ince

In Kasimpasa, the Istanbul neighborhood where Erdogan was born, all eyes are on TVs showing election results in stores and cafes. Although votes are still being counted, cars with Turkish flags have started touring the streets.

Video

May 28, 2023, 12:41 p.m. ET

Nimet Kirac

reporting from Kahramanmaras

While counting is still underway, supporters of President Erdogan are driving celebratory convoys through the streets, honking, whistling and playing nationalistic songs.

May 28, 2023, 12:22 p.m. ET

Ben Hubbard

reporting from Istanbul

Counting of ballots in Turkey's presidential runoff was proceeding swiftly, just over two hours after polls closed. Preliminary results showed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the lead over the opposition candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, according the state-run Anadolu news agency. ANKA, a smaller news agency close to the opposition, also reported that Erdogan was ahead, although by a smaller margin.

Image

May 28, 2023, 12:11 p.m. ET

Elif Ince

Image

"Our country is stronger thanks to Erdogan, he can stand up to foreign leaders. He makes us feel safe and powerful. They can't play with us like they used to."

Musa Aslantas, 28, the owner of a bakery in Istanbul's Kasimpasa neighborhood, where President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was born.

May 28, 2023, 11:56 a.m. ET

Image

OSMANIYE, Turkey — When powerful earthquakes struck southern Turkey on Feb. 6, killing more than 50,000 people and destroying hundreds of thousands of buildings, many expected the disaster to harm President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the ballot box.

The vast destruction raised questions about whether his government's rush to develop properties had resulted in unsafe buildings, and many earthquake survivors complained that the government's initial response had been slow, leaving people trapped in the rubble or shivering in the cold as they waited for food and shelter.

But the results from the first round of Turkey's presidential election on May 14 — which set the stages for Sunday's runoff — indicated that the disaster had a limited effect on how residents of the afflicted area voted.

"I am definitely an Erdogan supporter," said Eda Akgul, who was still living in a white tent near her damaged house nearly four months after the earthquake.

She had also survived a smaller earthquake in the southeastern province of Elazig in 2020, she said, and expected Mr. Erdogan to help now as he had helped then.

"Erdogan made really good contributions to Elazig after the earthquake there," she said. "Otherwise, the people wouldn't have voted for him."

Interviews with quake survivors indicated many reasons that the disaster had not changed their political outlook. Some described the quake as an act of God that any government would have struggled to respond to. Some whose homes were destroyed said they had more faith in Mr. Erdogan to rebuild the affected areas than they had in his challenger, the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Mr. Erdogan, who won 49.5 percent of the first round vote against Mr. Kilicdaroglu's 44.9 percent, came out ahead in eight of the 11 provinces affected by February's earthquake. His governing Justice and Development Party and its political allies fared even better, winning a majority of votes in the simultaneous parliamentary elections in all but one of the quake-stricken provinces.

Voter participation in the earthquake zone was also high, despite worries that many voters displaced by the destruction would struggle to return home to cast their ballots. Although participation in the 11 quake-affected provinces was lower than the 88.9 percent of eligible voters who cast ballots nationally, in none of those provinces did turnout dip below 80 percent.

In Osmaniye, where Ms. Akgul lives, the quake's destruction is clear. There are empty lots where buildings that collapsed once stood and blue and white tents sheltering quake survivors are scattered around town.

Instead of voting based on the government's quake response, residents said they focused on other issues.

Suleyman Asilturk, who runs a tobacco shop in the center of town, said he preferred nationalist politicians such as Mr. Erdogan because of the town's history of sending young men to the military to fight Kurdish militants who have been fighting a bloody, decades-long battle against the state for autonomy.

"We have given so many martyrs," Mr. Asilturk said, referring to local soldiers killed in action. "Our vote will go to the patriots again."

May 28, 2023, 11:37 a.m. ET

Image

"There are problems for the past two years, but the one who will solve this is Erdogan. In the earthquake zone, too, if someone is going to rebuild this region, it's Erdogan."

Haci Mehmet Acikmavi, 28, a textile factory worker and father, who voted for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a middle school in Kahramanmaras.

May 28, 2023, 11:12 a.m. ET

Image

ISTANBUL — His campaign addresses would begin softly, drawing the audience in. A devout Muslim, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan frequently said he sought to please not just the Turkish people, but also God. Playing to the crowds, he sang folk songs, recited lines from local poets or draped the sash of the local soccer team over his shoulders.

He sometimes waded into the throngs of supporters for photos or greeted children, who kissed his hands. Then he took to the podium to speak, dressed in a suit or a plaid sports coat.

To the cheers and whistles of hundreds of transportation workers at a campaign rally last week, he laid out why they should keep him in power in the runoff on Sunday. He boasted that he had improved the country's roads and bridges, raised wages and offered tax breaks to small businesses.

He also vowed to keep fighting forces that he deemed enemies of the nation, including gay rights activists, to make Turkey "stronger in the world." And he bashed the leaders of the opposition seeking to unseat him, accusing them of having entered "dark rooms to sit and bargain" with terrorists because they won the support of Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party.

"We take refuge only in our God and we take our orders from our nation," the president said. The crowd roared and men leaped to their feet, chanting, "Turkey is proud of you!"

Mr. Erdogan, 69, came out ahead in the toughest political fight of his career on May 14 — the first round of the presidential election. Since then, he kept a busy schedule in the run-up to the final vote.

In multiple appearances a day and in speeches that sometimes lasted 40 minutes, he stuck to themes that have served him well during his two decades as Turkey's leading politician. He billed himself on the campaign trail as the leader needed to shepherd a rising nation struggling to beat back multiple threats so it can claim its rightful place as a global power.

May 28, 2023, 10:57 a.m. ET

Nimet Kirac

reporting from Kahramanmaras

Election workers are counting votes inside a shipping container in a schoolyard in central Kahramanmaras.

Video

May 28, 2023, 10:38 a.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

Merve Dizdar, who won the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, cast her vote in Istanbul about 15 minutes before the polls closed. She went to the polling station from the airport after returning from France, and was met with applause, according to video footage posted on social media. Ms. Dizdar received some criticism for her acceptance speech in Cannes, after she dedicated her award to "all the fighting souls who wait to live the beautiful days they earn in Turkey."

Cannes Film Festivali'nde En İyi Kadın Oyuncu Ödülü'nü kazanan Merve Dizdar, oy kullanmaya geldiği okulda alkışlarla karşılandı pic.twitter.com/WhsgABGa2F

— Neden TT oldu? (@nedenttoldu) May 28, 2023

May 28, 2023, 10:29 a.m. ET

Elif Ince

Reporting from Istanbul

Image

"I support Kilicdaroglu because under the current government, freedoms have deteriorated in every aspect. Basic rights such as sexual orientation are being targeted. I want the equality we had 20 years ago, to get our rights back, to have equal opportunity."

Ekin Anil, 42, an artist in Istanbul, explained her support for Turkey's opposition leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, as voters went to the polls again on Sunday for the election runoff.

May 28, 2023, 10:23 a.m. ET

Safak Timur

Reporting from Istanbul

On Sunday, counting is expected to be faster than it was after the first round of voting on May 14, as there is only one ballot paper for the two presidential candidates. There is a media ban on releasing preliminary results until 9 p.m. local time, but the Supreme Election Council, the top judicial body overseeing elections in Turkey, could decide to lift that measure earlier.

May 28, 2023, 9:52 a.m. ET

Image

"Allah willing, Recep Tayyip Erdogan will win and we will come out on top. We are not party fanatics, we are just happy with his service. Even if I were upset with the government, I still don't feel a sense of trust for the C.H.P."

Mehmet Bekereci, 61, a retired shopkeeper, was voting with his wife at a school in Kahramanmaras province on Sunday. The C.H.P., or the Republican People's Party, is Turkey's largest opposition party and is led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu.