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27-05-2023
ISTANBUL: The two weeks between Turkey’s first and second round of voting has seen a marked change in campaign intensity as the country enters the uncharted territory of a presidential run-off.
Sunday will be the first time Turkish voters have ever had to go to the ballot box for a second time to select their next president and many seem to find it hard to resurrect the enthusiasm of the first round.
“It’s a strange feeling. I feel like the election is finished, but I know there’s another one on Sunday,” said Soner Ugurlu, 49, as he sipped tea with friends in Istanbul’s Tophane neighborhood.
“Of course, I will vote again, but it seems weird because everything is much calmer compared to two weeks ago,” he said.
Many voters see President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the likely winner as he seeks to extend his 20 years in power by a further five years, adding to the sense that the second vote is something of an anticlimax.
Erdogan surprised pollsters and commentators on May 14 when he emerged ahead of his two challengers and came 
close to surpassing the 50 percent threshold to win the contest in the first round.
He now faces the second-placed candidate, opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who secured about 45 percent of the vote to Erdogan’s 49.2 percent, according to the most recent tally. It is only the third time Turks have voted directly for their president. Erdogan won the 2014 and 2018 polls in the first round.
Most opinion polls had predicted Kilicdaroglu coming first in the initial ballot with some even suggesting an outright win, and the opposition’s confident messaging reflected this anticipated result. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
