The head of Türkiye’s Supreme Election Council has announced that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won a third term in office after defeating Kemal Kilicdaroglu in a runoff election.
Erdogan claimed 52.14% of the vote to Kilicdaroglu’s 47.86%, Supreme Election Council chairman Ahmet Yener told reporters on Sunday night. Erdogan defeated his rival by a margin of around 2.2 million votes, according to figures released by the council.
Erdogan’s victory was all but assured for several hours by the time Yener spoke to the press, with a count by Türkiye’s Anadolu Agency showing an unclosable gap between Erdogan and Kilcdaroglu within hours of polls closing earlier on Sunday evening.
By the time around 98% of ballots had been counted, Erdogan declared victory in a rally outside his Istanbul residence, in which he thanked “each and every member of the nation” for taking part in the election.