Voting ends in Türkiye’s presidential runoff election

By Gozde Bayar

ANKARA (AA) — Polling stations across Türkiye closed on Sunday as voting in the country's presidential runoff election ended at 5 p.m. local time (1400GMT).

More than 64.1 million people were registered to vote, including over 1.92 million who earlier cast their ballots at overseas polling stations.

A total of 191,885 ballot boxes were set up for voters across Türkiye.

Polling stations at customs gates also closed on Sunday, while voting at Türkiye’s overseas diplomatic missions ended on May 24.

Ballot counting has begun to determine the outcome of the two-way race between President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and main opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu for a five-year term.

Millions of voters went to the polls on May 14 to elect the country's president and members of its 600-seat parliament.

Erdogan’s People’s alliance won a majority over the opposition's six-party Nation Alliance in parliament.

But the presidential race headed to a second round as no candidate won a simple majority, or 50% of the vote, though Erdogan was in the lead.​​​