Turkey brings elections forward to May 14, Erdoğan announces

Photo: AA

Turkey will hold the presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has announced.

A presidential decree concerning the decision will be published in the Official Gazette tomorrow, the president said at a press conference in Ankara, the capital. However, about an hour after his remarks, a "duplicate" issue of the gazzette was published, including the decree.

If the president is not elected in the first round, the secod round take place on May 28, Ahmet Yener, head of the Supreme Electoral Council (YSK), announced later in the day. A second round will be held if no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round. 

The elections were previously scheduled for June 18. The president has been expressing his intentions to bring forward the elections since late 2022.

The elections are widely anticipated to be the most challenging ones during Erdoğan's two-decade rule amid an economic crisis and the aftermath of the massive earthquakes on February 6.

Erdoğan's rival in the presidential election will be Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP). He was on Monday declared the joint candidate of a six-party bloc known as the "Nation's Alliance" or the "Table of Six." 

The Kurdish issue-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which leads a third bloc, also left the door open for supporting Kılıçdaroğlu against Erdoğan. (VK)