'We all missed democracy,' Erdogan rival says after voting

AFP , Sunday 14 May 2023

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's main challenger pledged Sunday to restore democracy, after casting his ballot in the country's most important election of modern times.

Turkey s Republican People s Party (CHP) Chairman and Presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu cast
Turkey s Republican People s Party (CHP) Chairman and Presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu casts his ballot to vote in the presidential and parliamentary elections, in Ankara, Turkey, on May 14, 2023.

 

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"We all missed democracy," secular leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu told reporters in Turkey's capital Ankara. "You will see, God willing, spring will come to this country."

Polling suggests that Kilicdaroglu, a 74-year-old former civil servant, has a chance of ending the more than two-decade rule of Erdogan's conservative Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Kilicdaroglu leads the secular Republican People's Party (CHP) and heads a disparate six-party opposition alliance, which spans Turkey's cultural and religious divides and was forged with the sole aim of ousting Erdogan.

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