Supporters of Recep Tayyip Erdogan celebrated late into the night as Turkey’s long-serving president continued to rule for another five years.
“The whole nation of 85 million won,” he told cheering crowds outside his massive palace on the outskirts of Ankara.
But his call for unity rang hollow as he mocked his opponent Kamal Kelikdar Oglu – and targeted a jailed Kurdish leader and the LGBT community.
The opposition leader clearly did not concede the victory.
Complaining about the “most unfair elections in recent years”, Mr. Kilicdaroglu said the president’s political party had mobilized all the means of the state against him.
President Erdogan finished with just 52 percent of the vote, based on almost entirely unofficial results. Almost half of voters in the deeply polarized country do not support his authoritarian vision of Turkey.
Ultimately, Mr. Kılıkdaroğlu was no match for Erdogan’s well-run campaign, even if he carried the president to a runoff for the first time since he was directly elected to the post in 2014.
But he barely narrowed his opponent’s first-round lead, trailing by more than two million votes.
The president made the most of his victory with an opening speech to supporters atop a bus in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, followed by an address to an enthusiastic crowd on the balcony of his palace after dark, in which he The number was 320,000.
He called it one of the most important elections in Turkey’s history, declaring that “We didn’t just win, Turkey won.”
He mocked his opponent’s defeat with the words “Bye, bye, Kamal” – a chant echoed by his supporters in Ankara.
Mr Erdogan scoffed at the main opposition party’s increase in the number of its MPs in parliamentary voting two weeks ago. He said the actual number was reduced to 129, as the party gave away dozens of seats to its allies.
He also condemned the opposition coalition’s pro-LGBT policies, which he said were at odds with his own focus on families.
The race for votes has accelerated. In one incident, an opposition Good Party official was stabbed to death in front of the party’s office in the northern coastal town of Ordu.
The motive for Erhan Kurt’s killing was unclear, but a leading opposition official blamed youths celebrating the election results.
Although the final results were not confirmed, the Supreme Election Council said there was no doubt as to who had won.
Opening the palace grounds to the public is highly unusual – but so was the result, extending his reign by a quarter of a century.
Supporters came from all over Ankara to taste the victory. There were Islamic chants, while some had placed Turkish flags on the grass for prayers.
For one night, Turkey’s economic crisis was forgotten. Sayhan, a supporter, said it was all a lie: “No one is hungry. We are very happy with his economic policies. He will do even better in the next five years.”
But the president admitted that tackling inflation is Turkey’s most pressing issue.
The question is, is he willing to take the necessary steps to do so? At an annual rate of about 44%, inflation creeps into everyone’s lives.
Prices for food, rent and other daily goods have risen, fueled by Mr Erdogan’s refusal to raise interest rates and pursue an orthodox economic policy.
The Turkish lira has hit a record low against the dollar and the central bank is struggling to meet rising demand for the foreign currency.
“If they continue with low interest rates, as Erdogan has indicated, the only other option is tighter capital controls,” warned Selva Demeralup, professor of economics at Istanbul’s Koc University.
Economics were far from the minds of Erdogan’s supporters, who spoke of his pride in his powerful position in the world and his tough stance on fighting “terrorists,” by which he meant Kurdish militants.
President Erdogan has accused his rival of supporting terrorists, and criticized a promise to release a former co-leader of Turkey’s second-largest opposition party, the pro-Kurdish HDP.
Despite the European Court of Human Rights ordering his release, Salahtan Demirtas has been in prison since 2016.
Mr. Erdogan said that while he was in power, Mr. Demertas would remain behind bars.
He also pledged to prioritize reconstruction in areas hit by February’s twin earthquakes and the “voluntary” return of a million Syrian refugees.
Crowds gathered in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, with many from the Middle East and the Gulf.
