ANKARA: The Turkish diaspora has begun voting in Turkey’s presidential run-off between incumbent Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who is seeking to end Erdogan’s two-decade rule.
Footage and photos from polling stations across the globe on Saturday appeared to show large numbers of people queueing to vote.
The second round of voting takes place domestically on May 28 after Erdogan fell just short of the 50 percent threshold needed to win the presidential vote outright on May 14, in what had been interpreted to be his greatest political challenge.
Some 3.4 million Turks abroad are eligible to vote, or about 5 percent of total votes. The diaspora vote had a clear impact on the outcome of the first round of the presidential election, with each politician retaining his strongholds in Europe where more than five million people of Turkish descent live. –Agencies
