ISTANBUL (AFP) – Millions of Turks living abroad wrapped up voting yesterday, in a tense election that has turned into a referendum on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s polarising two-decade rule.
Sunday’s presidential and parliamentary ballot will pass judgement on Turkiye’s longest-serving leader and the social transformation spearheaded by his Islamic-rooted party.
The vote is Turkiye’s most consequential in generations and the toughest of the 69-year-old’s tectonic career. Polls show Erdogan locked in a tight battle with secular rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his powerful alliance of six parties that span Turkiye’s cultural and political divide.
The first votes were cast by Turks who moved from poorer provinces to Western Europe over the decades under job schemes aimed at combating the continent’s labour shortage in the wake of World War II.
Such voters comprise 3.4 million of Turkiye’s 64.1 million registered electorate and tend to support more conservative candidates.
Official turnout on the morning of the last day of overseas voting yesterday was reported at 51 per cent – a touch lower than in past elections and a possible sign of worry for Erdogan.
“I am here because Turkiye is in a quite terrible situation right now,” Berliner Kutay Yilmaz said on the first day of voting in Germany late last month.
