Erdogan had 55% of the vote, compared to 39% garnered by main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Anadolu Agency reported.
Opinion surveys indicated the increasingly authoritarian Erdogan entered his bid for reelection trailing a challenger for the first time.
Faik Oztrak, a spokesman for Kilicdaroglu’s center-left party, cautioned the early returns were preliminary and said the “picture is extremely positive” for the opposition.
Erdogan has ruled Turkey as prime minister or president since 2003. Pre-election polling suggested he faced the toughest reelection battle of his two decades leading the NATO member country, which has grappled with economic turmoil and the erosion of democratic checks-and-balances in recent years.
Polls closed in the late afternoon after nine hours of voting in the national election that could grant Erdogan, 69, another five-year term or see him unseated by Kilicdaroglu, who campaigned on a promise to return Turkey to a more democratic path.
If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the winner will be determined in a May 28 run-off.
Voters also elected lawmakers to fill Turkey’s 600-seat parliament, which lost much of its legislative power under Erdogan’s executive presidency. If his political alliance wins, Erdogan could continue governing without much restriction. The opposition has promised to return Turkey’s governance system to a parliamentary democracy if it wins both the presidential and parliamentary ballots.
Pre-election polls gave a slight lead to Kilicdaroglu, 74, who was the candidate of a six-party opposition alliance. He leads the center-left, pro-secular Republican People’s Party, or CHP.
More than 64 million people, including 3.4 million overseas voters, were eligible to vote in the elections, which come the year the country will mark the centenary of its establishment as a republic — a modern, secular state born on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire.
Voter turnout in Turkey is traditionally strong, reflecting citizens’ continued belief in democratic balloting.
Yet Turkey has seen the suppression of freedom of expression and assembly under Erdogan, and it is wracked by a steep cost-of-living crisis that critics blame on the government’s mishandling of the economy. The president believes low interest rates tame inflation, in contrast to orthodox economic theory, and pressured the central bank to reflect his view.
The latest official statistics showed inflation at about 44%, down from around 86%, though independent experts believe costs continue to rise at a much higher rate. The price of vegetables became a campaign issue for the opposition, which used an onion as a symbol.
Turkey is also reeling from the effects of a powerful earthquake that caused devastation in 11 southern provinces in February, killing more than 50,000 people in unsafe buildings. Erdogan’s government has been criticized for its delayed and stunted response to the disaster, as well as a lax implementation of building codes that exacerbated the casualties and misery.
Internationally, the elections were being watched closely as a test of a united opposition’s ability to dislodge a leader who has concentrated nearly all state powers in his hands.
In 2016, Erdogan survived a military coup attempt he blamed on followers of a former ally, US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. The attempt triggered a large-scale crackdown on Gulen’s supporters and other critics, including pro-Kurdish politicians, for alleged links to terror groups.
In this election campaign, Erdogan used state resources and his domineering position over media to try to woo voters. He accused the opposition of colluding with “terrorists,” of being “drunkards” and of upholding LGBTQ+ rights, which he depicts as threatening traditional family values in the predominantly Muslim nation.
In a bid to secure support from citizens hit hard by inflation, he has increased wages and pensions and subsidized electricity and gas bills, while showcasing Turkey’s homegrown defense and infrastructure projects.
He also extended the political alliance of his ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, to include two nationalist parties, a small leftist party and two marginal Islamist parties.
Kilicdaroglu’s six-party Nation Alliance pledged to dismantle an executive presidential system narrowly voted in by a 2017 referendum. The opposition alliance also promised to restore the independence of the judiciary and the central bank and to reverse crackdowns on free speech and other forms of democratic backsliding under Erdogan.
The alliance includes the nationalist Good Party led by former Interior Minister Meral Aksener, a small Islamist party and two parties that splintered from the AKP, one led by a former prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, and the other by a former finance minister, Ali Babacan.
The country’s main Kurdish political party, currently Turkey’s second-largest opposition grouping, is supporting Kilicdaroglu in the presidential race. Erdogan’s government in recent years has targeted the party’s leaders with arrests and lawsuits.
At polling stations, many voters struggled trying to fold bulky ballot papers — they featured 24 political parties competing for seats in parliament — and to fit them into envelopes along with the ballot for the presidency.
Also running for president was Sinan Ogan, a former academic who has the backing of an anti-immigrant nationalist party. Another candidate, center-left politician Muharrem Ince, dropped out of the race on Thursday following a significant drop in his ratings. But the country’s election board said his withdrawal was invalid and votes for him would get counted. The vote will decide not only who leads Turkey, a NATO-member country of 85 million, but also how it is governed, where its economy is headed amid a deep cost of living crisis, and the shape of its foreign policy, which has taken unpredictable turns.Opinion polls give Erdogan's main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who heads an alliance of six opposition parties, a slight lead, but if either of them fail to get more than 50% of the vote there will be a runoff election on May 28.
Voters will also elect a new parliament, likely a tight race between the People's Alliance comprising Erdogan's conservative Islamist-rooted AK Party (AKP) and the nationalist MHP and others, and Kilicdaroglu's Nation Alliance formed of six opposition parties, including his secularist Republican People's Party (CHP), established by Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 5 p.m.
(1400 GMT). Under Turkish law, the reporting of any results is banned until 9 p.m. By late on Sunday there could be a good indication of whether there will be a runoff vote for the presidency.
In Diyarbakir, a city in the mainly Kurdish southeast which was hit by a devastating earthquake in February, some said they had voted for the opposition and others for Erdogan.
"A change is needed for the country," said Nuri Can, 26, who cited Turkey's economic crisis as the reason for voting for Kilicdaroglu. "After the election there will be an economic crisis at the door again, so I wanted change." But Hayati Arslan, 51, said he had voted for Erdogan and his AK Party.
"The country's economic situation is not good but I still believe that Erdogan will fix this situation. Turkey's prestige abroad has reached a very good point with Erdogan and I want this to continue," he said.
Queues formed at polling stations in the city, with some 9,000 police officers on duty across the province.
Many in the provinces affected by the earthquake, which killed more than 50,000 people, have expressed anger over the slow initial government response but there is little evidence that the issue has changed how people will vote.
Kurdish voters, who account for 15-20% of the electorate, will play a pivotal role, with the Nation Alliance unlikely to attain a parliamentary majority by itself.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) is not part of the main opposition alliance but fiercely opposes Erdogan after a crackdown on its members in recent years.
The HDP has declared its support for Kilicdaroglu in the presidential race. It is entering the parliamentary elections under the emblem of the small Green Left Party due to a court case filed by a top prosecutor seeking to ban the HDP over links to Kurdish militants, which the party denies.
END OF AN ERA?
Erdogan, 69, is a powerful orator and master campaigner who has pulled out all the stops on the campaign trail as he battles to survive his toughest political test. He commands fierce loyalty from pious Turks who once felt disenfranchised in secular Turkey and his political career has survived an attempted coup in 2016, and numerous corruption scandals.
However, if Turks do oust Erdogan it will be largely because they saw their prosperity, equality and ability to meet basic needs decline, with inflation that topped 85% in Oct. 2022 and a collapse in the lira currency.
Kilicdaroglu, a 74-year-old former civil servant, promises that if he wins he will return to orthodox economic policies from Erdogan's heavy management.
Kilicdaroglu also says he would seek to return the country to the parliamentary system of governance, from Erdogan's executive presidential system passed in a referendum in 2017. He has also promised to restore the independence of a judiciary that critics say Erdogan has used to crack down on dissent.
In his time in power, Erdogan has taken tight control of most of Turkey's institutions and sidelined liberals and critics. Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2022, said Erdogan's government has set back Turkey's human rights record by decades.
If he wins, Kilicdaroglu faces challenges keeping united an opposition alliance that includes nationalists, Islamists, secularists and liberals.
The final days of the campaign were marked by accusations of foreign meddling.
Kilicdaroglu said his party had concrete evidence of Russia's responsibility for the release of "deep fake" online content, which Moscow denied. Erdogan accused the opposition of working with U.S. President Joe Biden to topple him. A US State Department spokesperson said Washington does not take sides in elections.