Voting begins in Turkey’s presidential, parliamentary polls

KABUL (Pajhwok): Voting began on Sunday in Turkey’s landmark presidential and parliamentary elections as both leading presidential runners RecepTayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu accused each other of being dependent on Russia and America.

Voting in the thirteenth round of presidential and 28^th round of parliamentary elections started at 8:00 am today (14^th of May) and will close at 5:00 pm in the afternoon.

According to Reuters, these elections will not only elect the president of 85 million people and a NATO member state, but will also determine how to govern the country facing economic crisis.

Erdogan of People's Alliance and Kemal Kilicdaroglu of six-party Nation Alliance and Sinan Ogan of ATA alliance are leading candidates for the presidential post.

Kilicdaroglu, 74, heads a secular Nation’s Alliance Party (CHP). He and his allies want to restore the changes that Erdogan brought in constitution of Turkey to increase his powers.

This experienced politician promised to restore the parliamentarian democracy, the rule of law, freedom of speech in Turkey again.

Sinan Oganhas entered the run as another independent candidate and probably has the least chance to win the election. Ogan’s coaltion has the support of small nationalist and Islamist parties.

The two main candidates of today's election went to two different places on the last day of campaigning, which showed their political preferences for the future of Turkey.

Turkish President RecepTayyip Erdoğan went to the Hagia Sophia Mosque on Saturday evening and performed Maghrib prayer there while Kemal Kilicdaroglu also went to the tomb of Kemal Ataturk, the founder of "New Turkey".

It is worth mentioning that both of the presidential and parliamentary elections of Turkey are held the same day.

According to a report of Anatolia news agency, over 191,000 ballot boxes have been placed in 937 polling stations and 1094 ballot centers all over Turkey and the winner will rule the country for a five years term.

Over 60.3 million eligible voters have registered for voting in these elections and 50.6 percent of them are women.

Both of the leading candidates, Erdogan and Kilicdaroglue accused each other for dependence on Moscow and Washington.

Kilicdaroglu accused Russia of interfering in Turkish elections in favor of Erdogan, and on the other hand, Erdogan said on the last day of his election campaign that the opposition wanted to end his government with the help of the American president.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman of the Kremlin, however, rejected the accusations of the Turkish opposition leader regarding Moscow's interference in the presidential elections of this country and said: "We categorically reject the accusations of interference in the Turkish elections."

The Supreme Election Council of Turkey will announce un-official results of the presidential election by 12:00 tonight local time, and if none of the candidates win more than 50% of the votes, the election will go to the second round between two leading candidates.

aw/ma