The two candidates voted in the second round of the presidential elections in Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu, as reported by AFP.

The president Recep Tayyip Erdogansaid after casting his vote in Uskudar, on the Asian side of Istanbul, accompanied by his wife Emine, that the vote “will be completed quickly”.

“No country in the world has participation rates of 90%, Turkey has almost reached it. I call on my fellow citizens to come and vote,” he noted, stressing that the vote “will be completed quickly.”

His opponent, the opposition candidate in the second round of the presidential election in Turkey Kemal Kilicdarogluwho had voted seconds earlier in Ankara, called on his fellow citizens to “vote to get rid of an authoritarian government”.

“For true democracy and freedom to come to this country, to get rid of an authoritarian government, I call on all citizens to vote,” he said.

The opposition candidate also called on his fellow citizens to stay close to the polls after the polls closed (at 17:00 local and Greek time) “because these elections were held in very difficult conditions”, he noted.

“All kinds of defamation and slander have been made, but I have confidence in the common sense of the people. Democracy will definitely come to this country, freedom will come,” he assured his supporters gathered in front of the polling station, who applauded him during the his output.

Meanwhile, the election process is underway, with a large turnout, just like in the first round.

Erdogan is the favorite

Erdogan, who has been in power for twenty years, is considered the favorite in this unprecedented second round of the presidential election, in which he faces the social democrat Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The polls have just opened and Turkey’s approximately 60 million voters (the diaspora has already voted) are invited to choose between the visions presented by the candidates from 08:00 to 17:00 (local and Greek time).

On the one hand, the stability – and the risk of authoritarian deviation – of the outgoing 69-year-old Islamic conservative vice-president, or, on the other, the return to the parliamentary system proposed by his 74-year-old rival, a former senior civil servant.

The 49.5% of votes secured by Mr. Erdogan, the one-time mayor of Istanbul, above all a devout Muslim, in the first round on May 14 attested if nothing else to the broad support he enjoys – despite sky-high inflation and cost of living crisis more broadly, despite the inadequacies in dealing with the terrible devastation caused by the February 6th earthquake – on the part of the conservative majority.

Including voters in the areas hardest hit by the earthquake, which left at least 50,000 dead and three million displaced.

In contrast, Mr. Kilicdaroglu, the demokrat dede (“democratic grandfather”), as the gray-haired and thin-glasses economist likes to portray himself, has been unable to capitalize politically on the economic crisis plaguing households and youth.

The chairman of the CHP – the Republican People’s Party, founded by Mustafa Kemal, the founding father of the Republic of Turkey – promised “the return of spring”, the return to a parliamentary system, the restoration of the independence of the judiciary, the central bank, the Press.

“Enough of the oppression of the regime and its politics,” said Ugur Barlas, a 39-year-old teacher in Ankara yesterday, who will vote for the opposition candidate because he wants “change”.

However, Mr Kilicdaroglu, who did not exceed 45% of the vote in the first round, is the outsider: despite the continued support of the pro-Kurdish HDP, defying his late alliance with a tiny far-right, nationalist and xenophobic party, he is in the opinion polls to remain five points behind the head of state who also saw the majority of his governing alliance renewed in the Turkish parliament on May 14.

One million watchers

Sluggish after the first round, looking deflated as he failed to secure the victory his alliance had taken for granted, Kemal Kilicdaroglu re-emerged four days later, far more aggressive, far less smiling, transformed than when he started his campaign.

In the absence of systematic access to the major media, above all to the state television networks, which were dedicated to promoting the campaign of the head of state, he fought battles on Twitter, while his supporters went door-to-door to see voters, to mobilize them.

At stake in the second round are the 8.3 million votes of citizens who did not cast themselves in the first round — even though turnout reached 87%.

Faced with the distinctive Alevi – a member of a community that hardline Sunnis call heretical – Mr Erdogan made one campaign speech after another, touting the country’s transformation since he took power, first becoming prime minister in 2003, then president in 2014.

The head of the Turkish state, who has already raised the minimum wage three times in one year, also multiplied the gallantry during the election campaign, promising, among other things, free studies for students who are children of earthquake-affected families.

Today is “a special day for all of us”, he said yesterday, adding that “the time when we had coups and military juntas is over”.

Wrapping up his campaign he paid a visit with plenty of symbolism: he went to the grave of his political idol, the nationalist-Islamist former prime minister Adnan Menderes, who was overthrown and then hanged by the generals in 1961.

Not exactly a pleasant coincidence for the president is the fact that the second round of the election is being held exactly ten years after the outbreak of the Gezi protests, which spread from Istanbul’s eponymous park across the country. It was the first wave of challenge to Mr. Erdogan, which was met with a brutal crackdown.

For Zerin Altaili, a 60-year-old retiree, the important thing is that today’s elections be held “honestly”, “without fraud”.

The opposition announced that it would send “five observers to each ballot box”, in other words a million people in total, to control the smooth running of the process.

The first round of the elections was “competitive”, but partly “limited” by the “unfair advantage” given by the state media to the head of state and his faction, the joint OSCE (Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe) and the Council of Europe.

The result of the presidential election will be announced in the evening and will be watched very carefully by Turkey’s allies, especially