About this election
Turkey's presidential election, held in the republic's centenary year, went to a runoff for the first time. In the first round on 14 May 2023, President Erdoğan led with 49.52% to 44.88% for the joint opposition candidate Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, with the nationalist Sinan Oğan on 5.17%, just short of the majority needed to win outright. In the runoff on 28 May, Erdoğan was re-elected with 52.18% to Kılıçdaroğlu's 47.82%, securing a third term. Turnout was 87.04% in the first round and 84.15% in the runoff.
Under the executive presidency, the president is head of state and government, elected directly for a five-year term by a two-round system: a candidate winning more than half the valid votes in the first round is elected, otherwise the top two contest a runoff two weeks later. The 2023 election was held on the same day as the parliamentary vote and was widely described as the most consequential in Turkey's modern history — a referendum on twenty years of Erdoğan's rule and on the direction of the country in its second century.
The election took place months after the catastrophic February 2023 earthquakes, which killed more than 50,000 people across southern Turkey and exposed failures in building standards and the emergency response. It also came amid a severe cost-of-living crisis, with inflation having peaked above 80% the previous year following Erdoğan's unorthodox low-interest-rate policy. These crises had led many to expect the opposition's best chance in two decades to unseat the president.
Six opposition parties — the "Table of Six", spanning the secular CHP, the nationalist İYİ Party, and several smaller conservative and breakaway parties — united behind a single candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the long-serving CHP leader. The pro-Kurdish movement, running as the Green Left Party, also endorsed him without formally joining. The alliance promised to restore the parliamentary system and the rule of law, but Kılıçdaroğlu's mild, consensual style struggled to match Erdoğan's command of the campaign.
Erdoğan retained overwhelming advantages in state and media resources and rallied his base around themes of national strength, security and religious conservatism, while attacking the opposition's links to the Kurdish movement. After falling just short of a first-round win, he entered the runoff as the clear favourite; Oğan's first-round voters broke decisively his way, and Erdoğan extended his lead to win comfortably. The opposition's failure, after uniting and amid deep economic pain, was a profound disappointment for its supporters.
Erdoğan's victory extended his rule into a third decade and confirmed the durability of his coalition of conservative, nationalist and religious voters. International observers again judged the contest free but not fair, citing media bias and the advantages of incumbency. The result entrenched the executive-presidential system and dashed opposition hopes of a return to parliamentary government, prompting recriminations and a leadership change within the CHP.
Whereas Erdoğan had won outright in the first round in both 2014 and 2018, in 2023 he was forced to a runoff for the first time — a sign of eroding but still resilient support after two decades and a deep economic crisis.
The first round's surprise was the 5.17% won by Sinan Oğan, an ultranationalist backed by the anti-immigration Ancestral Alliance, which made him the unexpected kingmaker. His voters' second preferences were decisive for the runoff, and his own endorsement of Erdoğan — together with the hardening of anti-refugee and anti-Kurdish rhetoric by both finalists — signalled how far nationalism and hostility to Syria's refugees had moved to the centre of Turkish politics. Kılıçdaroğlu's attempt to court the same nationalist sentiment in the two-week interval failed to shift the balance.
Defeat after such a long build-up was devastating for the Table of Six, which fractured soon afterward. Within months Kılıçdaroğlu was challenged and replaced as CHP leader by the younger İstanbul mayor-aligned wing of the party, and the opposition alliance effectively dissolved. The result confirmed both the durability of Erdoğan's electoral coalition and the persistent difficulty the opposition faced in converting economic discontent into a winning national majority.
Turnout of around 87% in the first round and 84% in the runoff was extraordinarily high, underscoring the intensity of a contest seen at home and abroad as a turning point for Turkish democracy. The diaspora, voting at consulates across Europe, again leaned heavily toward Erdoğan, reinforcing his first-round lead.
The election was watched far beyond Turkey's borders. As a NATO member straddling Europe and the Middle East, a host to millions of Syrian refugees, and a pivotal actor in the war in Ukraine — where Erdoğan had brokered a grain-export deal while maintaining ties to both Kyiv and Moscow — Turkey's choice of leadership carried weight for European security, migration policy and the wider region. Erdoğan's victory ensured continuity in a foreign policy that combined NATO membership with an assertive, independent line, and dashed Western hopes of a more conventionally pro-EU government under the opposition.
Supreme Election Council of Turkey (YSK) — ysk.gov.tr.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.