As the May 14 election day approaches, it remains unclear whether or not Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been at the helm of the country for some 20 years, will win the presidency once more. According to the voting intention polls at PolitPro, the leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) is currently forecast to come in a close second place to opposition candidate and leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
While global polls of recent years have shown how wrong they can be, Erdoğan’s chances of winning became a little slimmer today, as Muharrem İnce of the Homeland Party (MP) announced he would be standing down as a candidate. According to Al Jazeera, İnce’s withdrawal is likely to boost votes for Kılıçdaroğlu.
As the following chart shows, prior to İnce’s decision to stand aside, Kılıçdaroğlu was forecast to receive 48.9 percent of the vote, while Erdoğan was expected to trail just behind with 43.2 percent. Meanwhile, presidential candidate of the ATA Alliance party Sinan Oğan was forecast to receive 3.1 percent of the vote.
Presidential elections are held every five years in Turkey. Voters elect their president directly and in order to win, a candidate would need to have at least 50 percent of the votes. If no one secures this, the two leading candidates will compete in a run off two weeks on (May 28).
At the same time, Turkish voters will be casting their ballot to choose who will represent them in parliament, called the Grand National Assembly. This is determined through proportional representation. According to PolitPro, as of the time the voting intention poll was taken, the three parties expected to pull in the most votes were the Justice and Development Party (AKP) with an anticipated 34.4 percent of the vote, followed by the Republican People’s Party (CHP) with 29.5 percent and then the Good Party (İYİ) with 11 percent.
Polling stations will open at 8am local time on May 14 and will close at 5pm.
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