record attendance with 90% participation

Polling stations in Turkey have closed at 17:00 local time (14:00 GMT) after nine hours of voting to elect the 600 members of Parliament and the new president, with the polls pointing to a defeat, without good by a narrow margin, of the current incumbent, the Islamist Recep Tayyip Erdoganafter two decades in power. Election day has passed hardly any incidents.

The central electoral board has reported that a member of a polling station has died and the opposition has denounced some irregularities and alleged vote manipulation. Various sources and media report that participation will be higher than usual, in a country where it usually exceeds 80%. Canan Kaftancioglu, the president of the social democratic party CHP, the main opposition party, has assured, for example, that in istanbul participation could reach 90%.

Five million young people, 8% of the electorate, are voting for the first time in these elections, and demographic studies indicate that the majority will do so for the opposition. The latest polls predict a narrow victory for the opposition leader, the Social Democrat Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Erdogan, although it is possible that neither of them will achieve an absolute majority in this first round of the presidential elections that would avoid a second round in two weeks. A third candidate, the nationalist sinan oganhe will not obtain more than 3%, enough to subtract from the two candidates with options the necessary votes to achieve that majority.

[Turquía acude a las urnas con el país dividido entre la mano dura de Erdogan y el giro hacia Occidente]

In the parliamentary elections, the polls see it as unlikely that the coalition of Erdogan’s party, the Islamist akpwith the ultranationalist MHP renew its absolute majority, although the alliance of the social democrat would not reach it either CHP with the nationalist IYIso the leftist party HDP would be decisive.

The electoral campaign has been very tense, with Erdogan going so far as to compare these elections with the failed coup that suffered in 2016something that has aroused fears that the president will not accept eventual defeat, or that his supporters will cause riots that make an orderly handover of power difficult.

Faced with these comments, Erdogan himself stated on Friday that he will accept any result democratically.

Turkey’s supreme electoral board has lifted the ban on reporting election results, which was originally in effect until 9:00 p.m. local time.