How president Erdogan defied the odds – again

The results of yesterday’s election have come as a sobering shock for many in Turkey. Although president Erdogan fell just short in the first round of the 50 per cent he needed to automatically secure another term, a parliamentary majority remains within his grasp. Erdogan is now expected to comfortably win the run-off. Even before the counting was finished, he delivered a victory speech in Ankara on Sunday night.

If Erdogan surpassed expectations, the opposition significantly underperformed. In the lead-up to the election, numerous polls suggested that the joint presidential candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, held a lead of up to five points over his rival, giving him a good chance of winning in the first round. In the end, the discrepancy between independent polls and the final results was substantial: Kilicdaroglu’s Republican People’s party (CHP) won around 45 per cent of the vote, compared to Erdogan’s 49 per cent. As seen in the elections of Donald Trump in the United States and Viktor Orban in Hungary, polling companies have again underestimated the support of right-wing populist leaders.

Kilicdaroglu had managed to secure the support of the ultranationalist IYI party, the Islamist Saadet party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), the Communist Turkish Workers party (TIP), among others.