Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan became Turkey’s first popularly elected head of state, mustering 51.8% of the vote, or 20.7 million votes, in the first round of the presidential elections on Aug. 10, according to preliminary results. With 55.6 million eligible voters, the turnout stood at 74.3%, below the country’s traditional average.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the joint candidate of the two largest opposition forces, the center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the rightist Nationalist Action Party (MHP), won 38.5% of the vote, or 15.4 million votes, according to the preliminary results. The figure signifies a glaring debacle for Ihsanoglu and the two opposition parties that supposedly backed him, for the CHP and the MHP’s combined vote in the March 30 local elections amounted to 43%, or about 20 million votes.
The third candidate, Selahattin Demirtas of the People's Democratic Party (HDP), who represented an alliance between the Kurdish movement and several leftist groups, garnered 9.7%, or 3.9 million votes, according to the preliminary results. This showing of the newly founded HDP and its co-chair Demirtas should be seen as a success, for it represents a 50% increase from the 5-6% support that the HDP’s predecessor, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), used to have.
The president’s election by popular vote became possible in 2007 as a result of the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) response to political interventions by the Turkish military and judiciary at the time. In April 2007, the general staff — averse to the prospect of Abdullah Gul’s election as president because of his Islamist roots — issued a harsh-worded online statement reflecting its objections, in what became known as the “e-memorandum” in Turkey’s political jargon. The Constitutional Court, for its part, canceled the presidential vote in parliament on the grounds that the house lacked the necessary quorum. In response to the crisis, the AKP called snap elections from which it emerged with a crushing victory. The party then drew up a constitutional amendment to have the president elected by popular vote, and the proposal was adopted at a referendum in October 2007.
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