What has happened?
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the great survivor of Turkish politics, has defied the widespread expectation that his 20-year stint as Turkey’s leader might finally be over. Opinion polls had shown him behind. But in last Sunday’s first round of voting in the presidential election, Erdogan took 49.5% of the vote, compared with 44.9% for his main challenger, Kemal Kılıçdaroglu, the unity candidate of a six-party coalition. It means Erdogan is the resounding favourite to be re-elected in the 28 May run-off; he needs just 300,000 extra votes, whereas his opponent needs 2.7 million. To
