ISTANBUL – Turks started voting on Sunday in one of the most consequential elections in modern Turkey’s 100-year history, which could unseat President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 20 years in power and halt his government’s increasingly authoritarian path.

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 Mr Erdogan’s main challenger, Mr Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who heads an alliance of six opposition parties, a slight lead, but if either of them fails to get more than 50 per cent of the vote, there will be a run-off election on May 28.

Voters will also elect a new Parliament, likely a tight race between the People’s Alliance comprising Mr Erdogan’s conservative Islamist-rooted AK Party and the nationalist MHP and others, and Mr Kilicdaroglu’s Nation Alliance consisting of six opposition parties, including his secularist Republican People’s Party, established by Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Polls opened at 8am (1pm Singapore time) and closed at 5pm. Under Turkish election law, the reporting of any results is banned until 9pm. By late on Sunday, there could be a good indication of whether there will be a run-off vote for the presidency.

In Diyarbakir, a city in the mainly Kurdish south-east that was hit by a devastating earthquake in February, some said they had voted for the opposition and others for Mr Erdogan.

“A change is needed for the country,” said Ms Nuri Can, 26, who cited Turkey’s economic crisis as the reason for voting for Mr Kilicdaroglu. “After the election, there will be an economic crisis at the door again, so I wanted change.”

But Mr Hayati Arslan, 51, said he had voted for Mr 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 at 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 per cent to 20 per cent 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 Mr Erdogan after a crackdown on its members in recent years.

The HDP has declared its support for Mr 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.

Mr 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 Mr Erdogan, it will be largely because they saw their prosperity, equality and ability to meet basic needs decline, with inflation that topped 85 per cent in October 2022 and a collapse in the lira currency.

Mr Kilicdaroglu, a 74-year-old former civil servant, promised that if he wins, he will return to orthodox economic policies from Mr Erdogan’s heavy management.

He also said he would seek to return the country to the parliamentary system of governance, from Mr 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 Mr Erdogan has used to crack down on dissent.

In his time in power, Mr 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 Mr Erdogan’s government has set back Turkey’s human rights record by decades.

If he wins, Mr Kilicdaroglu faces challenges in 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. 

Mr Kilicdaroglu said his party had concrete evidence of Russia’s responsibility for the release of “deepfake” online content, which Moscow denied.

Mr Erdogan accused the opposition of working with United States President Joe Biden to topple him.

A US State Department spokesman said Washington does not take sides in elections. REUTERS