Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan casts his ballot at a polling station during the second round of the presidential election in Istanbul, on Sunday.
Murad Sezer/AP
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Murad Sezer/AP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan casts his ballot at a polling station during the second round of the presidential election in Istanbul, on Sunday.
Murad Sezer/AP
ISTANBUL, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has secured a victory in a historic runoff election, the toughest challenge of his political career.
The win cements his third term in power and signifies the endurance of his one-man executive rule, despite mounting grievances against him in Turkey, including his unorthodox economic policies, poor response to a devastating earthquake and diminishing democratic freedoms.
Ahmet Yener, the head of Turkey’s Supreme Election Council, announced that with 99.4% votes counted, 52.14% had gone for Erdogan and 47.86% for his opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu.
The first round of voting two weeks ago failed to produce a clear winner for the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic. But Erdogan came ahead of his main opponent, Kilicdaroglu, by 4.5 percentage points, giving him an advantage ahead of Sunday’s vote.
The two men offered starkly different visions for Turkey and its future. Erdogan, 69, led a divisive campaign in which he presented himself as the leader who would make…