Turkey’s presidential election is going to a runoff after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan comfortably outperformed his chief rival, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, but just failed to clear the 50% vote threshold needed to avoid a second round. The 69-year-old conservative incumbent confounded pollsters’ predictions and his more liberally inclined rival to win the first round of the country’s pivotal election, scoring 49.51% against Kılıçdaroğlu’s 44.88%, with a small number of overseas votes left to count. The runoff will take place on 28 May.
Polls and observers had predicted an advantage if not an outright victory for Kılıçdaroğlu, 74, but the final results from last Sunday’s election made