More religious voters are also grateful for his decision to lift secular-era restrictions on headscarves and introduce Islamic schools.
He is still lionised across swathes of conservative Turkey that witnessed a development boom during his rule. The NATO member's footprint in both Europe and the Middle East makes the election's outcome as critical for Washington and Brussels as it is for Damascus and Moscow. Turkey has grown into a military and geopolitical heavyweight that plays roles in conflicts from Syria to Ukraine. "We need change, we've had enough," farmer Mehmet Topaloglu told AFP after voting amid the ruins left by a deadly February earthquake that razed the ancient city of Antakya and other parts of the southeast.Įrdogan has steered the nation of 85 million through one of its most transformative and divisive eras in the post-Ottoman state's 100-year history. It is the toughest of more than a dozen that the 69-year-old leader has confronted - one that polls hint he might lose. Turnout was expected to be huge in what has effectively turned into a referendum on Turkey's longest-serving leader and his Islamic-rooted party.
Turkey voted Sunday in a momentous election that could extend President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's two-decade grip on power or put the mostly Muslim nation on a more secular course.
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