Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s power has been strengthened in Turkish simultaneous Parliamentary and Presidential elections, held on Sunday 24 June amid great controversy over Erdogan’s announcement of these snap elections. “Our democracy has won, the people’s will has won, Turkey has won” said Erdogan in front of a crowd of supporters in Ankara after being reelected at the 1^st round with a record turnout of 87%.

Turkish state-run news agency, Anadolu, reported that People’s Alliance, the political coalition between Erdogan’s party, Justice and Development Party, and the Nationalist Movement Party, reached a majority of 52,5% of votes in the presidential election, in line with previous poll estimations. Official results are expected to be published over the next days.

Muharrem Ince, from the Republican People’s Party, reached 30,8% of the votes; Selahattin Demirtas, of the pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party, received 8,1%, and Right-wing IYI Party, led by Meral Aksener, got 7,4% of the votes, according to the same source. All the opposition leaders accused Anadolu of manipulating the electoral outcome, to what Erdogan responded: “I hope nobody will try to cast a shadow on the results and harm democracy in order to hide their own failure”.

On the other hand, at the parliamentary elections, Erdogan’s Party got 42,4% of the votes, predicted to be converted into 293 out of 600 members of the parliament.