High voter turnout was recorded in Türkiye’s groundbreaking presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday, News.Az reports citing Daily SAbah. 

The turnout was recorded as 88.3% with over 92% of the votes counted, barely above the 88.2% turnout in the 2018 elections.

Long lines were seen in polling stations across the country, starting from the early hours of the morning until 5 p.m. local time, when voting ended.

The Supreme Election Council (YSK) put the expat voter turnout at 53%, with nearly 800,000 voters, compared to 350,000 in 2018.

Voter turnout stood at 88.2% in the 2018 presidential elections.

More than 64.1 million people were registered to vote, including over 1.76 million who have already cast their ballots abroad and 4.9 million first-time voters.

A total of 191,885 ballot boxes were set up for voters in the country. Every voter cast two ballots, one for the president and the other for lawmakers, who will serve five-year terms.

Turkiye’s incumbent leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan leads against his challenger from the opposition, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, in the May 14 presidential election after almost 100% of ballots were counted. 

Erdogan has 49.42% of the vote, compared to 44.95% garnered by Kilicdaroglu. The third candidate, the leader of the ATA Alliance, Sinan Ogan, has secured the support of 5.20% of voters.

The winner in the first round must get 50% plus one vote, otherwise a runoff will take place on May 28.

The latest results of the parliamentary vote showed that the People's Alliance got 321 parliamentary seats out of 600 while Nation Alliance secured 266 ones.

News.Az