Turkey’s Elections: A Contested and Uncertain Outcome

Turkey held its scheduled elections on May 14, with mixed results. While President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development-led “People’s Alliance” has likely held its parliamentary majority, the presidential election results are still unclear. The polls accurately depicted a close race between President Erdogan and his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu. At present, neither candidate appears to have crossed the 50% threshold necessary to clinch the presidency, and thereby triggering a runoff election on May 28.To discuss what lies ahead, FDD will host a panel featuring Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies and director of the International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR); Howard Eissenstat, associate professor of Middle East history at St. Lawrence University; and Sibel Oktay, non-resident senior fellow of Public Opinion and Foreign Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The panel will be moderated by Sinan Ciddi, non-resident senior fellow at FDD and associate professor of national security studies at Marine Corps University.