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People are queuing up to cast their votes
Photo: IMAGO/dts News Agency
Voting for the run-off election for the Turkish presidency in Germany has begun. Until May 24, the 1.5 million eligible voters in Germany are called upon to decide at the polls between incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his challenger Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu of the CHP.
Erdoğan is considered the favorite ahead of the second round at home and abroad after narrowly missing out on an absolute majority in the first round on May 14.
The fact that he ended up ahead of his challenger also has to do with the votes from abroad. Of a total of 3.4 million Turks abroad eligible to vote, only about half went to the polls. However, 57.7 percent of them voted for the incumbent head of state. Kılıçdaroğlu received just under 40 percent of the vote. In Germany, too, only about one in two eligible voters cast their ballots, but 65 percent of them voted for Erdoğan, according to preliminary figures. The ruling AKP, together with the votes of its ultra-nationalist partner MHP, won the parliamentary vote last Sunday.
In the upcoming elections, observers expect a similar voting behavior of voters abroad. Most of Turkey's foreign voters live in Germany. In Berlin, the opportunity to vote on Saturday was met with great interest. Hundreds of Turkish voters have been coming to the Consulate General on Heerstraße in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district since Saturday morning. Long queues formed in front of the building.
Erdoğan addressed his supporters on Friday, thanking them for their votes in the first round and urging them to vote again. "Each of you has already engraved your name in gold letters on our political history," Erdoğan wrote on Twitter. "I ask you to exercise your democratic right at all costs."
Challenger Kılıçdaroğlu urged Turks abroad to take part in the election. Casting the vote for the run-off election is a "national duty" for citizens wherever they are in the world, he said in a speech posted on Twitter on Friday evening.
Turks abroad were able to vote for the first time in 2014 at specially set up polling stations. The settlement goes back to Erdoğan. In Turkey, the possibility of voting at the ballot box abroad is repeatedly criticized, especially by members of the opposition.
In the 2018 elections, about half of the Turks eligible to vote in Germany had exercised their right to vote. Around 65 percent voted for Erdoğan. At that time, too, it performed significantly better in the Federal Republic than in the overall result (around 53 percent).
svs/dpa