88.8% of Turkish voters voted in the first round of the presidential elections and 87% voted in the parliamentary elections which this year coincided with the presidential elections.

The average turnout in Turkish parliamentary elections since the 80s is over 85 percent. And in the presidential elections held in 2018 and 2014, voter turnout was 86 and 74 percent, respectively. Voting is compulsory in Turkey, but the penalty is not imposed.

Voter turnout in the world is down to just over 60 percent after declining steadily since the late 80s, according to a compilation from the intergovernmental organization IDEA, which compares countries' electoral systems. In Sweden, voter turnout was 84.2 percent in the 2022 election.

Challenges for the second round of the election

Aras Lindh believes in high participation in the second round of the presidential election as well, but the parties have challenges ahead of them.

"Now that Erdogan has a head start, the question is whether the air may not have gone out of some of the supporters of the opposition. At the same time, supporters on the government side may feel so victorious that they do not vote.

Long journey

A further challenge is that citizens have to vote in the province where they are registered. This is important not least for the hundreds of thousands of Turks who have evacuated from the earthquake-stricken Hatay province. Now they have to return again if they want to vote. In the first round of the presidential election, 83 percent of the people registered in Hatay province voted.

Even in Sweden, Turkish citizens may be forced to travel far again. The more than 43,000 people who are eligible to vote in Sweden must get to the country's only polling station in Älvsjö in Stockholm. In the first round of the election, 32% of these people voted.