Follow the vote: Turkey election results 2023

More than 64 million people are eligible to vote to elect a president and parliament for a five-year term.

Voting has now ended in Turkey’s elections as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces the biggest political challenge of his two-decade rule. His main rival is opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu. More than 64 million people were eligible to vote to elect a president and parliament for a five-year term.

The polls opened at 8am (05:00 GMT) and closed at 5pm (14:00 GMT).

The results of the elections will be shown below as soon as they become available.

Map of results:

How voting works in Turkey: 

In July 2018, a month after Erdogan won the presidency, Turkey transitioned from a parliamentary to a presidential system, abolishing the post of prime minister. Presidential and parliamentary elections are held on the same day every five years.

There are three presidential candidates: Recep Tayyip Erdogan (AK Party), Kemal Kilicdaroglu (CHP), and Sinan Ogan (ATA).

Any candidate who can secure more than half the presidential vote on May 14 will be the winner. If no candidate can secure that, there will be a second runoff between the two top contenders two weeks later.

2022 electoral changes

In a law passed by the parliament in April 2022, the election threshold decreased from 10 percent to seven percent.

More importantly, the amendments changed the way seats are distributed among member parties of an alliance.

In the past, parliamentary seats were allocated according to the total votes mustered by an alliance through common candidate lists prepared by allied political parties.

With the changes, the seats will be allocated according to the votes that each party receives individually.

Main candidates

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 69

Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, known as AK Party)
People’s Alliance candidate

• The current president has had 20 years in power, nine as president.
• Was prime minister from 2003 to 2014 and mayor of Istanbul, 1994-1998.
• Seeking a third consecutive presidential term in May 14 elections.
• This could be his most challenging election as voters worry about the economy and earthquake damage.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, 74

Cumhuriyet Halk Partesi (CHP, known as Republican People’s Party)
Nation Alliance candidate

• Has led the CHP for more than a decade.
• Before politics, he was a finance ministry specialist, then chaired the Social Insurance Institution for most of the 1990s.
• Presided over a string of electoral defeats at CHP but is running as a unity candidate for the six-party Nation Alliance with the backing of Turkey’s second-biggest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish HDP.
• Promises to bring Turkey back to a “strong parliamentary system”.

Sinan Oğan, 55

ATA Alliance candidate

• Comes from an academic and international finance development background.
• Formerly in the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), an ally of Erdogan’s AK Party.
• Was deputy dean of Azerbaijan State Economic University and a representative of the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency, 1994-1998.
• Elected as Igdır deputy from MHP in 2011 and expelled from his party in 2015 for his internal opposition.
• Brands himself as the candidate of Turkish nationalists.
• He has been accused of having xenophobic and far-right policies, particularly when it comes to Syrian refugees.