Erdogan wins Turkey’s election

Our live coverage of Turkey’s election has ended. Read the latest here.

Denel Anart told CNN Erdogan was "his everything" and that she would die for him.

It is past 1 a.m. in Turkey and jubilant crowds are still celebrating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s victory outside of his ruling party’s Istanbul headquarters.

The sky was streaked with fireworks as the air filled with chants and music.

When Erdogan started to deliver his speech from the presidential palace balcony in Ankara, supporters in Istanbul gathered to watch him on a large screen.

Yunus and Merve Gun thought about the future of their child in deciding whom to vote for.

Yunus Gun, 23, said he was confident Erdogan would overcome the country’s string of financial and political woes.

“We thought the future of our kid while we were voting … We are aware that purchasing power is low at the moment but I’m sure the circumstances will improve God willing.”

His wife, Merve, said she was soaking up the moment. “What needed to happen, happened. We are living that the moment,” she said.

Sehat Pak believes Muslims should rejoice following Erdogan's reelection win.

Others struck a more religious note.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters at the Presidential Palace in Ankara on May 28.

Speaking to throngs of thousands of his supporters outside the presidential palace, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrated his election to a third term as president by declaring “it is our democracy who won this election.”

Erdogan followed his calls for unity by seemingly poking fun at the opposition CHP party for an electoral move that effectively gave members of allied political parties seats in parliament. During the campaign, Erdogan and his AKP party repeatedly criticized Kilicdaroglu as an inept negotiator.

Inflation: Erdogan said the most urgent topic his government faces is “eliminating the problems caused by price increases caused by inflation and compensating for welfare losses.”

Earthquake recovery: Erdogan said that with the election over, it is time to “allocate all our time and energy to working and serving.”

“Healing the wounds of the earthquake and resurrecting our destroyed cities will continue to be at the top of our priorities,” he said.

Refugee return: Erdogan also vowed to resettle 1 million Syrian refugees who had fled their country due to war.

“To date, we have voluntarily returned nearly 600,000 people to safe areas in Syrian territory. With a new resettlement project we are carrying out with Qatar, we will ensure the return of 1 million more people in a few years,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan, who has previously dismissed calls for comprehensive deportation, told CNN earlier this month that he would  “encourage” around a million refugees to return to Syria. 

US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak both tweeted congratulatory messages to Recep Tayyip Erdogan after he won Sunday’s runoff election.

Biden said he looked forward “to continuing to work together as NATO Allies on bilateral issues and shared global challenges.”

Sunak’s statement was similar. The British leader said he looked forward, “to continuing the strong collaboration between our countries, from growing trade to tackling security threats as NATO allies.”

Supporters of Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan wait for him to make a speech at the Presidential Palace in Ankara on May 28.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has arrived at the Presidential Palace to address massive crowds of supporters after being elected to his third term in power, according to a statement from the country’s presidency.

Erdogan began the evening in Istanbul and greeted supporters outside his residence there. Before the results were made official, Erdogan appeared to take a victory lap, singing in celebration on top of a campaign bus. Addressing a large crowd of jubilant supporters waving the Turkish flag, he thanked the nation.

He later hopped on a plane for the 45-minute flight from Istanbul to Ankara, the capital.

After he was officially declared the winner, Erdogan tweeted: “With the great Turkey victory … let the century of Turkey begin!”

Leaders from around the globe continue to send their congratulations to Erdogan.

Here are some of the latest messages:

President Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters in Istanbul on May 28.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will extend his 20 years at the top of Turkey’s political landscape after winning the country’s presidential runoff election on Sunday.

Erdogan received 27,513,587 votes, or 52.14% of the votes cast, according to figures released by the country’s Supreme Election Council, beating challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu who had 25,260,109 votes, or 47.86%.

Turkey’s Supreme Election Council has declared President Recep Tayyip Erdogan the winner of Turkey’s presidential runoff election on Sunday.

Turkish presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu delivers a speech at the CHP headquarters in Ankara, Turkey, on May 28.

Presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu said he would continue to fight for “real democracy” in Turkey in a speech from his party headquarters in Ankara.

Although the address had echoes of a concession speech, Kilicdaroglu did not outright admit defeat. However, he said what “truly makes me sad is the hard days ahead for our country.”

Kilicdaroglu also referenced allegations that Erdogan galvanized his supporters by hurling unfounded claims at his opponents. Erdogan has accused Kilicdaroglu of colluding with Kurdish terror groups and repeatedly referred to the opposition leader — a member of the liberal Muslim Alevi minority — as a not-good-enough Muslim.

“This was the most unfair election period in our history … We did not bow down to the climate of fear,” Kilicdaroglu said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin joined a chorus of world leaders congratulating Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday over the runoff election results, although votes are still being counted and official results have yet to be released.

Though Turkey is a member of the NATO alliance that Russia views as an existential threat, Erdogan and Putin have what the Turkish President called a “special” relationship. Erdogan said in an exclusive interview ahead of the presidential election runoff that the two nations “need each other in every field possible.”

Putin is one of several world leaders who have congratulated Erdogan as results have started come in.

Here are some of the messages Erdogan has received so far:

Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrate in Istanbul's Taksim Square on May 28.

Official election results have yet to come in, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s supporters have already begun celebrating in Istanbul.

In Taksim Square, people gathered chanted Erdogan’s name and “God is Great.”

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Outside the Istanbul headquarters for Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, hundreds of people began pouring in after the first round of preliminary results showed Erdogan in the lead. Some came with children, while others waved flags, honked car horns and set off flares and fireworks.

Erdogan supporters gather outside the AKP headquarters after preliminary results showed him in the lead on May 28.

Erdogan supporters celebrate outside the AKP headquarters in Istanbul on May 28.

Erdogan supporters celebrate in Istanbul on May 28.

Supporters of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have taken to the streets to celebrate the Turkish leader’s lead in the preliminary vote count of Sunday’s presidential runoff.

But the gap between Erdogan and his rival Kemal Kilicdaraglou is narrow, despite Erdogan having won the endorsement of the race’s third-place candidate Sinan Ogan, analysts say.

Erdogan has presided over high inflation and a cost of living crisis, a situation blamed largely on the president’s unorthodox economic policies. His opponents say his control over state resources and affiliation with the country’s media helped sway the vote in his favor.

Mehmet Karli, adviser to Kilicdaroglu, called Erdogan’s apparent election win a “pyrrhic victory” accusing the president of fueling tensions during the election.

“It does appear that President Erdogan has won these elections. But it would be a mistake to call this a victory. Perhaps a Pyrrhic victory is a better term to describe this situation,” Karli said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses a crowd of supporters in Istanbul on May 28.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addressed a large crowd of visitors outside his residence in Istanbul, declaring victory despite the fact that no official result has been declared in Sunday’s presidential runoff election.

Erdogan also thanked the nation for giving Turkey a “day of democracy.”

Erdogan is leading challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the latest official tally from Turkey’s Supreme Election Council. With about 75.42% of the vote counted Erdogan is leading Kilicdaroglu by 53.41% to 46.59%.

Turkey’s Supreme Election Council has given another update on the vote count in the country’s runoff election to decide its next president.

With about 75.42% of the vote counted, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan leads Kemal Kilicdaroglu 53.41% to 46.59%.

Here’s a breakdown of the numbers in Turkey and abroad:

Domestic ballots

Overseas ballots

Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Turkey’s Supreme Election Council said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is leading challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the latest preliminary official count of ballots.

The council said 54.6% of all votes have already been counted. Erdogan netted 54.47% of those ballots, while Kilicdaroglu has won 45.53% of them.

The Supreme Election Council will disclose the contest’s official results. Most of the results reported so far have been unofficial tallies from Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

Clerks count ballots in Istanbul, Turkey, after polls closed on May 28.

Unofficial results from Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency show a tight race in Istanbul between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

With 85.70% votes in, Erdogan is trailing Kilicdaroglu 51.30% to 48.70% in the city.

Istanbul, with more than 15 million people, is Turkey’s largest population center and an important electoral bellwether. While the center-left Kilicdaroglu typically performs better in urban areas than the conservative Erdogan, the race in Istanbul was tight during the election’s first round. Kilicdaroglu won 48.56% of the vote there two weeks ago, but Erdogan came in a close second with 46.68%

Recep Tayyip Erdogan maintains a slight lead in his race for a historic third term as Turkey’s president. His lead against opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu has, however, dwindled as preliminary results continue to come in from state-run news agency Anadolu.

Here are the latest numbers from Anadolu:

Figures published by Anadolu are unofficial. The official result of the election will be published by Turkey’s Supreme Election Council.

A woman casts her vote during Turkey's general election on May 14, in Istanbul, Turkey.

High in voters’ concerns is the state of the economy and the damage caused by the earthquake. Even before the February disaster, Turkey was struggling with rising prices and a currency crisis that in October saw inflation hit 85%.

That hit the purchasing power of the public and is “fundamentally the reason why Erdogan’s popularity has been eroded,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and chairman of Istanbul-based think-tank EDAM. “That is going to be the major handicap for Erdogan,” he said.

Voters also cast their ballots based on whom they see as more capable of managing the fallout from the earthquake, as well as shielding the country from future disasters, analysts say, adding that Erdogan’s popularity had not taken the expected political impact.

Apart from the economy and the government’s management of Turkey’s frequent natural disasters, voters are likely concerned with Erdogan’s turn away from democracy – something the opposition campaigned to reverse.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at a campaign rally on May 27, in Istanbul, Turkey.

With more than 71% of the votes counted, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to lead challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu in today’s runoff election, according to preliminary unofficial results from the country’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

Here are the latest numbers from Anadolu:

Results published by Anadolu are unofficial. The official result of the election will be published by Turkey’s Supreme Election Council.

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana, Kazakhstan, on October 13.

Turkey has a “special” and growing relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin despite mounting pressure on Ankara to help bolster Western sanctions against Moscow, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an exclusive interview ahead of the presidential election runoff.

“Russia and Turkey need each other in every field possible,” he added.

Erdogan and his principal rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, have diverged on a number of foreign policy issues, including diplomacy with the West and Russia.

Kilicdaroglu has vowed to repair years of strained diplomacy with the West.

He has also said he would not seek to emulate Erdogan’s personality-driven relationship with Putin, and instead recalibrate Ankara’s relationship to Moscow to be “state-driven.”

But in the days leading up to the first round of the presidential race on May 14, Kilicdaroglu sharpened his tone on the Kremlin, accusing it of meddling in Turkey’s election and threatening to rupture the relationship between the two countries.

By contrast, Erdogan has doubled down on his relationship with Putin – and he thinks the West should follow suit. “The West is not leading a very balanced approach,” he told CNN. “You need a balanced approach towards a country such as Russia, which would have been a much more fortunate approach.”

Some background: Turkey, a NATO member that has the alliance’s second-largest army, has strengthened its ties with Russia, and in 2019 even bought weapons from it in defiance of the US. Erdogan has raised eyebrows in the West by continuing to maintain close relations with Russia as it continues its Ukraine onslaught, and has caused a headache for NATO’s expansion plans by stalling the membership of Finland and Sweden.

When the US Ambassador to Ankara Jeff Flake paid a visit in March to Kilicdaroglu Erdogan lashed out against him, calling the US diplomat’s visit a “shame,” and warning that Turkey needs to “teach the US a lesson in this election.”

Analysts have said that even if Erdogan were to be ousted in the polls, a foreign policy u-turn for Turkey is not a given. While figures close to the opposition have indicated that if victorious, it would reorient Turkey back to the West, others say core foreign policy issues are likely to remain unchanged.

Turkey has, however, also been useful to its Western allies under Erdogan. Last year Ankara helped mediate a landmark grains export deal between Ukraine and Russia, and even provided Ukraine with drones that played a part in countering Russian attacks.