Erdoğan elected President, Kurds voted en masse for Kılıçdaroğlu

YSK (Supreme Election Council) chair, Ahmet Yener, made a statement on the election results and proclaimed Erdoğan as the winner of the second round of the presidential elections.

Yener stated that 99.43 percent of the ballot papers were counted and added: “Tayyip Erdoğan received 52.14 percent of the votes while Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu got 47.86 percent of the votes.”

Erdoğan’s first speech full of threats

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, made a statement in Istanbul Kısıklı as counting continued.

Before departing for Ankara, Erdoğan said: “We have achieved a victory where nobody is left behind.” Further in his speech, Erdoğan once again accused opposition parties of being “LGBTI supporters” as he named each party individually. He added: “In our culture, family is sacred. No one can interfere with the family. We will strangle anyone who dares to touch it.”

He said: “We will be together until the grave” and asked for votes for the local elections planned for 2024. Erdoğan said: “We have 2023 ahead of us. You understand what I am saying, don’t you? Are we ready to win both Üsküdar and Istanbul in the local elections in 2024?

Targeting the opposition in his speech, Erdoğan threatened to “strangle” them.

Kurds once again say ‘no’ to Erdoğan

Erdoğan lost votes in Kurdistan once again in the second round of the Presidential elections. The opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, got the most votes, as in the first round.

Erdoğan lost in Sirnak and Hallari, which are on the border of Zap, Metîna and Avaşîn regions of the Federated Kurdistan Region, where he continued to implement the war concept he put into effect in 2015. Opposition candidate Kılıçdaroğlu received 76.30 percent of the votes in Sirnak and 72 percent in Hakkari.

Kurds demand change

In Amed, which has become the center of the AKP government’s repression policies, Erdoğan got 28.37 percent of the vote, while Kılıçdaroğlu, fully supported by the Kurds, got 71.61 percent of the vote.
In Mardin, where anger against the government continued in the second round, Erdoğan could not get more than the 34% of the votes he received in the 2018 elections. In Batman (Êlih), Erdogan’s vote rate remained at 32 percent. 

Kılıçdaroğlu, received 65.22 percent of the vote in Mardin and 67.90 percent in Batman.

In Dersim, where the AKP’s war concept and special war policies are imposed the most, Erdogan, who received 18.66 percent of the votes in the 2018 elections, was able to get just 17.19 percent of the votes on Sunday.

Kurds said “no” to Erdoğan by voting as follows for Kılıçdaroğlu: Ardahan 57.68 percent, Kars 56.40 percent, Idir 66.78 percent, 65.34 percent in Agirî, 58.33 percent in Muş, 61.50 percent in Van, 50.21 percent in Bitlis and 55.44 percent in Siirt.

Green Left Party: Our people said no to war

Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) co-chair Mithat Sancar and Greens and Left Future Party (Green Left Party) co-spokespersons Çiğdem Kılıçgün Uçar and İbrahim Akın held a press conference on the presidential run-off elections.

Akın stated that they faced an unequal and unfair election process marked by the repression carried out by the one-man regime.

Pointing out that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan used all the means of the state during the election process, Akın said: “The manipulations carried out by the troll armies on social media and directly funded by the propaganda apparatus of the Palace, the disinformation produced and the montaged videos are some of the most striking examples clearly showing that the elections were not fair.”

‘Our people did not step back’

Akın said: “We have expressed and defended that the main thing in these elections was to change the regime. We made an effort to open the door to democracy by offering realistic promises to a society faced by a choice between authoritarianism or democracy. With this strategy and our fight accordingly, we stopped Erdoğan in the first round. In the second round, we continued with the same strategy with the aim of changing the regime. The results show that our voters have resolutely supported our party’s policies and goals, and have strongly expressed their will in this direction. The vote preference for Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in 16 regional provinces where most Kurds  live was as high as it was on 14 May. Despite all the pressure and dirty propaganda, our people did not take a step back.”

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