Early returns from Turkey’s national election Sunday had President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with a solid lead after some 47 per cent of ballot boxes were counted, the Turkish state-run news agency said, while the longtime leader’s main challenger disputed the numbers that showed him trailing.
Erdogan, who has governed Turkey as either prime minister or president for two decades, had 52.2 per cent of the vote from the partial count, compared to 41.9 per cent garnered by opposition leader Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, the Anadolu Agency reported.
In the run-up to the election, opinion surveys had indicated the increasingly authoritarian Erdogan narrowly trailed his challenger. The
