by the associated pressTurkey’s Supreme Election Board on Friday confirmed the results of the first round of Turkey’s presidential election in which neither incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor his main rival, opposition leader Kemal Kilikdaroglu, won the majority support needed for an outright victory. .
The electoral board announced that Erdogan won 49.24% of the vote, with Kilikdaroglu receiving 45.07% and a third candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, receiving 5.28%, necessitating a runoff election on 28 May between the top two contenders.
Ogan, a former academic backed by an anti-immigrant party, may now hold the key to victory as he has dropped out of the race.
Speaking to Turkish media earlier this week, Ogan listed conditions for earning their support. Among them are taking a tough stand against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, as well as creating a timeline for repatriating millions of refugees, including some 3.7 million Syrians.
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The PKK, which has waged an insurgency in southeast Turkey for decades, is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
On Thursday, Kılıçdaroğlu moved away from his more inclusive, soft-spoken rhetoric to appeal to nationalist voters, rejecting any prospect of sending back millions of refugees and negotiating peace with Kurdish militants.
Meanwhile, speaking to CNN International in an interview aired on Friday, Erdogan said he would not bow to Ogan’s demands: “I am not a person who likes to negotiate like this. It will be those people who will be the kingmakers.
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Yet on Friday, a surprise meeting between Erdogan and Ogan took place at the former’s Istanbul office, No statement came after the meeting which lasted for about an hour.