Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday won the presidential poll in the first round, said the country’s election authority chief. Sadi Guven said the president “received the absolute majority of all valid votes”, BBC reported.

State media reports said Erdogan had won 53% of the 99% votes counted, and his closest rival Muharrem Ince had 31%.

In an address to thousands of supporters in Ankara, Erdogan said that democracy was the winner and that Turkey was “an example for the rest of the world”, The Guardian reported. “We have received the message that has been given to us in the ballot boxes,” he told a crowd of flag-waving supporters. “We will fight even more with the strength you provided us with this election.”

Advertisement

Erdogan spoke of his commitment to fight terrorist organisations and “to continue the fight to make the Syrian grounds freer” and to better the country’s “international reputation”. “Turkey has no moment to waste, we know that,” he added.

The centre-left Republican People’s Party, which is the main Opposition political outfit, did not immediately concede defeat, but said it would continue its democratic struggle “whatever the result”.

The pro-Kurdish HDP party secured 11.67% of the votes, passing the 10% threshold to enter Parliament for a second consecutive term. This brought down the numbers of Erdogan’s party, the AKP, in Parliament but fell short of the numbers needed to overturn its majority. This was the first time that voters simultaneously elected a new president and Parliament.

With these elections, Turkey transformed from a parliamentary democracy to a presidential one as mandated by a constitutional referendum that was passed narrowly last year. Erdogan will now have the right to issue decrees with the force of law and the power to exert greater influence over the judiciary and the civil services. “This sets the stage for speeding up reforms,” Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek tweeted after the results were declared.