Turkey’s presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday will have President Recep Tayyip Erdogan facing unprecedented challenges that could end his two-decade rule.

• Turks will be electing both a president and parliament for a five-year term.
• More than 64 million people are eligible to vote to elect a president and parliament for a five-year term.
• President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is facing the biggest political challenge of his two-decade rule.

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LIVE – Election in Turkey

• 7:53 PM (U.S. TIME) – May 14th

  Erdogan: We are far ahead in the vote

  President Erdogan has said that he is far ahead of Kilicdaroglu in the presidential election, although he is not sure of his victory in the first round.

  Erdogan, speaking at his party’s headquarters in Ankara in the early hours of Saturday, said he was 2.6 million votes ahead of the main opposition candidate.

  “Throughout our political life, without exception, we have always respected the decision of the national will. We respect it in this election as well, and we will respect it in the next elections,” he said.

  Erdogan also said he expected this number to rise with official results, adding: “We believe we will win in first round.”

  

• 3:40 PM (U.S. TIME) – May 14th

  Kilicdaroglu: We will not sleep tonight

  Opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu has said that “the fiction, which started with 60 percent, has now dropped below 50”, in an apparent reference to change in Erdogan’s lead as reported by the state-run Anadolu Agency.

  “Ballot observers and election board officials should never leave their spots,” he tweeted. “We will not sleep tonight, my people.”

• 2:42 PM (U.S. TIME) – May 14th

  Initial results indicate most likely heading to a second round

  Al Jazeera’s Abdelazeem Mohammed says “the initial results seem to indicate that we’re most likely heading to a second round.

  “The opposition is saying that the ruling alliance has deliberately started the vote count in its strongholds,” he said.

• 11:50 AM (U.S. TIME) – May 14th

  Erdogan says he will “continue to protect the will” of Turkey until election results are finalized

  Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed gratitude for the democratic voting process on Sunday and said his government will “continue to protect the will” of Turkey until all the votes are counted.

  “The voting process was completed in a way that befits our democracy, thank God. Now, as always, it’s time to hold tight to the ballot boxes. Until the results are final, we continue to protect the will of our nation!” he wrote on his official Twitter account.

  Polls closed at 17:00 local time. The Turkish leader, who has held his post for 20 years, cast his ballot in Istanbul and told reporters, “We pray to God for a better future for our country, our nation, and Turkish democracy.”

  His presidency has been rocked by criticism of his government’s handling of the earthquakes in February that claimed more than 51,000 lives in Turkey and neighboring Syria.

  Erdogan’s main challenger is CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who represents an election coalition of six opposition parties. This is the first time that Turkey’s factious opposition has coalesced around a single candidate.

• 11:07 AM (U.S. TIME) – May 14th

  Vote counting underway in Turkey’s presidential election

  

  

• 9:22 AM (U.S. TIME) – May 14th

  ‘We all missed democracy,’ says Erdogan’s rival

  Following his vote in Turkey’s crucial election, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the primary contender against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, promised to revive democracy. 

  “We all missed democracy,” said the secular leader, addressing reporters in Turkey’s capital Ankara. 

  “You will see, God willing, spring will come to this country.”

  Polling suggests that the 74-year-old former civil servant has a chance of ending the more than two-decade rule of Erdogan’s conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP).

  

• 9:10 AM (U.S. TIME) – May 14th

  In latest photos: Elderly, disabled people vote

  The elderly and disabled people went to polling stations across the country to vote, with many being helped by relatives or election officials.

  

  

• 9:00 AM (U.S. TIME) – May 14th

  Voting in Istanbul’s least populated neighbourhood

  In Istanbul’s least populated neighbourhood, 13 voters have cast their ballots.

  The polling station in Tahtakale lies just behind the city’s popular Spice Bazaar and a short distance from Hagia Sophia Mosque.

  But despite being one of the busiest and most touristic parts of the city, it has a sparse population.

  “There are fewer voters than many small villages,” election observer Kadir Burak Kale told the Anadolu news agency. “Voter lists are usually page by page [but] here it is a single page.”

  Election officials also voted at the polling station in Mimar Sinan Primary School, taking the ballot box’s total to 21 voting envelopes.

• 10:50 PM (U.S. TIME) – May 13th

  How does Turkey’s electoral system work?

  In July 2018, Turkey transitioned from a parliamentary system to a presidential one. In the new system, voters elect the president directly while the role of prime minister was abolished.

  A candidate needs more than half of the presidential vote to win. However, if no one reaches the 50-percent mark, the top two candidates will face off in a run-off vote two weeks later.

  Voters will also elect 600 members of the Grand National Assembly, as the Turkish parliament is known, through a system of proportional representation, choosing a party list in their district.

• 10:25 PM (U.S. TIME) – May 13th

  Turks grappling with housing crisis before polls

  Turkey has been going through an immense housing crisis amid hyperinflation and an economic downturn.

  Kilicdaroglu blames “Erdogan’s capitalism” for the housing crisis, and has promised to ban property sales to foreigners until things improve.

  February’s massive earthquakes in southeastern Turkey destroyed or heavily damaged more than 200,000 buildings, pushing many residents to migrate and increasing demand in other cities.

• 9:15 PM (U.S. TIME) – May 13th

  Pro-Kurdish party backs Erdogan’s rival

  Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party has backed Kilicdaroglu, but some voters feel they have few choices in elections.

  The Halkların Demokratik Party (Peoples’ Democratic Party, HDP), the third-largest in Turkey’s parliament, decided last March not to field a presidential candidate. The HDP, however, is fielding its parliamentary candidates under the banner of the Green Left Party, with an uncannily similar symbol ensuring swift recognisability at the ballot box.

  Kurds suffered repression under successive secular governments and helped Erdogan and his conservative party seize power 20 years ago. The relationship has since deteriorated, and the party is now facing the threat of closure over alleged “terror” ties.

  The HDP has won more than 10 percent of the vote in past national elections and represents a community accounting for about a fifth of Turkey’s population.

  “Kurds are only important for their votes. And then what happens? Nothing. We remain second-class even in a democracy,” said Asmin, whose family is from Kurdish-majority Diyarbakir.

• 7:55 PM (U.S. TIME) – May 13th

  Who is Erdogan, the man who has dominated Turkish politics for 20 years?

  Erdogan’s political career can be traced back to the 1970s in Beyoglu, the Istanbul district that includes his childhood home in Kasimpasa, a working-class neighbourhood.

  His first political role came in 1976 as the head of the Beyoglu youth branch of the National Salvation Party, led by Necmettin Erbakan, a future prime minister widely viewed as Erdogan’s mentor.

  Four years later, he attracted the attention of the courts for reciting a controversial poem. This led to a four-month jail term for “inciting hatred”.

  Emerging from prison in July 1999, Erdogan went on to form the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) two years later.

  The party won the 2002 elections. Due to his political ban, Erdogan was unable to take office as prime minister until the following March.

  So began two decades of power that many say have seen a dramatic change in Erdogan’s politics.

• 7:55 PM (U.S. TIME) – May 13th

  Who is Kilicdaroglu, the opposition’s presidential candidate?

  Kemal Kilicdaroglu – the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Turkey’s main opposition party – announced his candidacy for the presidency in March.

  Kilicdaroglu was born in 1948 in the eastern city of Tunceli. He is one of seven children born to a family from the Alevi religious minority. His father was a deeds officer, and his mother was a housewife.

  The experienced social democrat previously held top-level positions in the government, including the Ministry of Finance, the General Directorate of Revenues and two social security bodies.

  Kilicdaroglu has run against Erdogan three times before but has always lost.