Turkey's election authority releases initial figures
| AP Photo


Turkey's Supreme Election Board (YSK) Tuesday released the initial results of Sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections, announcing that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had received 52.59 percent of the votes.

According to the YSK figures, a total of 59,367,497 Turkish citizens cast their votes in Turkey and diplomatic missions and custom gates outside the country.

A total of 1,053,362 votes were invalid, the YSK said.

President Erdoğan managed to win an absolute majority with 26,329,920 people voting for him while his closest contender and main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) candidate Muharrem Ince garnered 15,340,295 votes with a percentage of 30,64.

The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) candidate and co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş had 4,206,130 votes; Meral Akşener, the newly formed Good Party (İP) chairwoman and the only female candidate received 3,649,432 votes.

The two remaining candidates, Felicity Party (SP) leader Temel Karamollaoğlu and the Patriotic Party's (VP) Doğu Perinçek, had 443,690 and 98,951 votes, respectively.

In the parliamentary elections, the AK Party won 41,85 percent of the votes with 20,980,956 people casting their ballots for the party. The Main opposition CHP received 22,48 percent while the HDP, MHP and İP won 11.7, 10.9 and 9.89 percent of the votes respectively.

YSK President Sadi Güven said the release of formal results will be pushed back a week to July 5.

The results were initially scheduled to be confirmed on June 29, but were pushed back because Erdoğan's simple majority means there won't be a second round runoff vote.