The two rivals in the Turkish presidential race now have seven days to convince the voters who failed them on May 14, but incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has the upper hand after the conservatives' breakthrough in the parliamentary elections.
Erdogan (69) won 49,52 percent of the votes in the first round of presidential elections, and he was said to be tired and worn out after 20 years in power. However, he has 2,5 million more votes than his opponent, social democrat Kemal Kilicdaroglu (74), a former senior civil servant and veteran politician.
Kilicdaroglu, who promises "the return of spring, peaceful democracy" and the return of the rule of law, won 44,9 percent of the vote, based on the large opposition coalition that wants to bring him to power. In that coalition, there are parties of both the left and the right.
The consulting group Euroasia Group, which was one of the few that predicted Erdogan's advantage in the first round with a voter turnout of 89 percent, now favors the current president of Turkey.
"Many nationalist voters do not approve of the opposition's decision to be represented by Kilicdaroglu and did not support him," said political scientist Berk Elsen.
In addition to those two candidates, Sinan Ogan, a representative of the nationalist extreme right, who wants to get rid of around five million refugees and migrants in Turkey, was in third place in the first round of elections.
Ogan (54) will announce tomorrow which candidate he will support in the second round. Erdogan received him for one hour in Istanbul on Friday, but apart from a photo of their handshake, nothing has been released to show what they discussed.
The political scientist said that he is not sure if Erdogan needs Ogan at all.
Kilicdaroglu, on the other hand, has not yet spoken to Ogan, but he did have a meeting with the head of the nationalist Zafer party, Umit Ozdag.
The support of a party to the opposition led by Kilicdaroglu is important, because in the parliamentary elections, which were held on the same day as the first round of presidential elections, the most parliamentary seats (322 out of 600) went to Erdogan's camp, and 213 to the opposition.
Erdogan's Islamic-conservative party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), alone won 268 seats and remains the leading political formation supported by the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) with 50 seats, as well as several small Islamist parties such as Huda -Par (four MPs) and Jeniden Refah (five).
Although the fight looks tough, Kilicdaroglu has not held any rally since the first round, nor is such a rally planned yet. On Thursday, he made a surprising statement that "if he comes to power, he will send all the refugees home."
Kilicdaroglu has previously said he wants to return 3,7 million Syrians "within two years" if he wins.
Erdogan continues to travel to areas affected by the February 6 earthquake, where the vast majority voted for him anyway.
The Turkish president, greeted by a sea of flags, promised reconstruction within six months and consistently repeats the same accusations that the opposing camp associates with "terrorists and the LGBT community."
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