The first presidential elections in Turkey highlight him Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the dominant winner in the second round, comment the British media in the first evaluation of the election result based on what is known, the SKAI correspondent broadcasts from London, Thanasis Gavos.

The Financial Times report that instead of putting an end to Erdogan’s rule, yesterday’s election process has caused reflection in the opposition camp.

Although Erdogan has not managed a victory since the first round, the result leaves Kilicdaroglu “with one of the worst case scenarios” ahead of the second round, the financial newspaper comments.

“The poll-defying performance underscored Erdogan’s enduring appeal and the appeal of his political offering to a base of conservative, religious voters with a strong nationalist bent,” the FT added.

It is also commented that electoral fatigue may be a problem for the opposition in the second round, with some voters losing their motivation after seeing the worse than expected performance of the first round.

The BBC agrees that Erdogan has defied many polls, while at the same time he is heading towards self-reliance in the Turkish National Assembly, with an estimated 316 out of 600 seats.

It is noted that Erdogan’s supporters mock the opposition for the certainty that Kilicdaroglu would be the country’s 13th president and then for the gradual lowering of expectations as election night progressed.

“What the result confirms is the extent to which Turkish society has become polarized, 100 years after Kemal Atatürk founded the modern Turkish republic,” comments the BBC.

And Sky News stands on the AKP’s looming victory in the national assembly, along with Erdogan’s better-than-expected presidential rate.

“Momentum counts for a lot and it seems that Erdogan, the great ‘survivor’, found it at the critical moment. On Saturday, bookmakers had Kilicdaroglu as the hot favorite to become president. Now they have Erdogan,” comments the British network.

The Timesfinally, they talk about a “rare defeat” of Erdogan, despite the first, as it is the first time that he does not secure the presidency in the first round.

DW: Too tough to die

Too tough to die would be a good title for Erdogan after last night’s thriller in Turkey, Deutsche Welle reports. Tayyip Erdogan defied almost all pollsters who gave Kilicdaroglu the lead. But the big surprise of the evening was Sinan Ogan, who, however the count progressed, remained stable at 5.3%. Of course, in the last few days it seemed that it was raising constant rates above 4% and this was confirmed.

At the same time, the ballot showed Erdogan’s success in convincing the earthquake victims that he is the only one who can restore the damage faster than the rest. The percentages he achieved in Gaziantep, Antiyaman, and even in Hatay are impressive.

Nationalist one in four Turks

In the end, the more pessimistic of the two projections made by Tayyip Erdoğan’s staff for the progress of the count turned out to be correct. It seems that it will remain slightly below 50%, although at the moment it has upward trends, as the last foreign ballots are counted.

The other clear message from the ballot box is that now one in four Turks is a nationalist, the sum of the nationalist parties exceeds 25% with what this implies for the course of Turkey’s foreign policy.

In fact, analysts note that in the future it is possible that Sinan Ogan will be the one to lead a pole that will rally all the nationalists.

Everything shows that tomorrow the Supreme Electoral Council will announce how we will go for the second round, unless we have some surprise from the minor objections that will lead Erdogan to emerge victorious by barely exceeding 50%.

Sinanoglu who was the first leader to speak yesterday clearly stated that he is not going to support, due to party principles, anyone who works with the Kurds.

So what will Sinanoglu do? Will he start a bargain to get a position or, as he said, he does not intend to do such a thing? On the other hand, if he leaves his voters free, it is clear that they will turn more towards Tayyip Erdogan’s coalition.

Trouble in Paris

He deals extensively with the results of the Turkish elections today’s French presswith the newspaper Le Monde to point out in its editorial that the man who has ruled Turkey for the past two decades no longer seems to be the undisputed leader.

The paper points to the dangers of Turkey entering a period of political and economic instability, given the narrow margin Erdogan has ahead, but also the continued devaluation of the Turkish lira. He also points out that, despite the economic problems and the tragic consequences of the last earthquake in Turkey, the Erdogan faction showed impressive resilience in the polls, while for Kilicdaroglu he emphasizes that the fact that he is an Alevi Kurd may have led many Turkish conservative Sunnis to vote against him.

Le Monde emphasizes that a major role will be played from now on by the position taken by Sinan Ogan, who, claiming that his goal is to deport the 3.6 million Syrians who are in Turkey, raised his percentage to 5 .3% of the electorate.

“It’s not exactly a victory, but it’s certainly not a defeat for Erdogan,” notes the French newspaper Figaro, referring to the election results in Turkey and pointing out the Turkish president’s statement that “he could serve his country for five more years”. The same confidence was shown by his opponent who promised his camp that “he will definitely win in the second round”, the French newspaper also reports.

For its part, the French newspaper Liberation, underlines that after the end of a vote with mass participation that was conducted “without notable incidents”, the first counts give an advantage to the outgoing president, who “seems in any case ready to respect the result of the ballot”. However, the newspaper points out, among other things, the opposition’s suspicion of the way the votes were counted, noting that Kilicdaroglu called on “the heroes of democracy” to remain vigilant even after the polls closed.

The successes and mistakes made by outgoing President Erdoğan during his two decades in power are finally recalled in an interview with the newspaper Le Monde by the Turkish author, Nobel laureate, Orhan Pamuk, who notes that for the last twenty years he has been in Turkey’s enormous economic growth, that there were changes that were not homogeneous, but also that in the last ten years everything was reversed and finally which changes were cancelled.

Orhan Pamuk describes the 2016 coup as “unacceptable”, as well as the revision of the Constitution in 2017, stressing that both contributed to the omnipotence of Erdogan, who, “locking freedom of speech and putting thousands in prison, turned himself into of a single, all-powerful leader.” He finally argues that what is partly keeping Erdogan in power is Europe.

“On the one hand, Erdogan is criticized by European leaders for the restrictions he imposes on freedom of expression, for imprisoning writers, etc., on the other hand, major Western countries, such as Germany and France, are secretly happy together because it keeps the immigrants away,” he notes, pointing out at the same time that Kemal Kilicdaroglu has hinted that his goal is to expel all Syrian refugees.