Turkey faces runoff election with Erdogan leading

Turkish President Erdogan said current results showed him far ahead of candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu in Sunday's presidential elections but stopped short of declaring outright victory.

In his first appearance after the polls closed, Erdogan said votes from abroad were still being counted and that he was 2.6 million votes ahead of his rival.

In a fiery speech to an exuberant crowd outside his AK Party's headquarters in Ankara, Erdogan said that he would respect the people's decision if the presidential vote goes to a runoff.

The head of Turkey's High Election Board said early on Monday that Erdogan was leading the presidential vote with 49.49%, with 91.93% of ballot boxes counted.

Ahmet Yener said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Erdogan's main rival, had 44.49% of votes.

Turkey's Kilicdaroglu says will accept people's decision for runoff

Turkey's opposition presidential candidate Kilicdaroglu said early on Monday that he will accept the people's decision for a second round, adding President Tayyip Erdogan had not obtained the result he wanted in Sunday's elections.

Speaking alongside leaders of the other parties in his alliance, Kilicdaroglu said he will win in the runoff against Erdogan.

Speaking for the first time since the initial results, Kilicdaroglu blamed Erdogan's AK Party for deliberately causing delays in polling stations by repeatedly contesting the counted results.

"There are persistent objections to 300 ballot boxes in Ankara and 783 ballot boxes in Istanbul. There are ballot boxes of which the results were contested six times and some eleven times," Kilicdaroglu said while urging the government to stop blocking the 'will of Turkey'.

Opinion polls before the election had pointed to a very tight race but gave Kilicdaroglu, who heads a six-party alliance, a slight lead. Two polls on Friday even showed him above the 50% threshold.

The presidential vote will decide not only who leads Turkey, a Nato-member country of 85 million, but also whether it reverts to a more secular, democratic path; how it will handle its severe cost of living crisis; and manage key relations with Russia, the Middle East, and the West.

Early results on Sunday put Erdogan comfortably ahead, but as the count continued his advantage eroded as expected. A runoff on May 28 appeared likely, which would delay a verdict on the president's two decades in power.

Meanwhile, outside Diyarbakir's district electoral board, polling station officials formed long queues alongside security personnel to deliver ballot papers in pouches.

A senior official from the opposition alliance said: "It seems there will be no winner in the first round. But, our data indicates Kilicdaroglu will lead."

Another senior opposition official told Reuters Erdogan's party was raising objections against ballots, delaying full results. "So far they are doing everything in their power to delay the process," he said.

Turkey's third presidential candidate Ogan says his electorate to determine results

A third nationalist presidential candidate, Sinan Ogan, stood at 5.3% of the vote. Who he decides to endorse in the next round could be critical.

"It seems that the elections will go to the second round and Turkish nationalists and Kemalists will be the determinants of the runoff," Ogan said while mentioning several preconditions to support either of the candidates.

With a high majority of votes counted, Erdogan's alliance looked set for a majority with 323 seats in the 600-seat parliament after results turned out far better for the ruling bloc than projected in most polls.

Reuters