Turkey’s battle for the presidency looks almost certain to go to a run-off, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan set for a four-point lead in the first round.
After 20 years in power, he stood on the balcony of his party HQ. He was convinced he would win five more.
Opposition challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu also claimed to have victory in his grasp.
Everything appeared to have fallen into place for first-round success
And Mr Erdogan has an added boost as he seeks to extend his presidency. According to preliminary figures provided by the state news agency, his People’s Alliance of parties has also won a majority in parliament.
For months, Turkey’s disparate opposition parties had pooled their resources in a bid to bring an end to a president. He has extended his power dramatically since a failed coup against him in 2016.
And Turks went out to vote in very high numbers. Officials put the turnout at 88.8%.
The election is watched very closely in the West. Because Mr Kilicdaroglu has promised to revive Turkish democracy and relations with its Nato allies.
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On the other hand, President Erdogan’s Islamist-rooted government has accused the West of plotting to bring him down. And Turkey’s candidacy for the EU has long been on ice.
In the early hours of Monday, Mr Kilicdaroglu stood on a stage at his party headquarters in Ankara, flanked by his allies, doing his best to sound upbeat.
“If our nation says second round, we will absolutely win in the second round,” he said.
Party spokesman Faik Oztrak later reinforced his comments, adding that they would do everything they could in the two weeks before the run-off
They praised an enormous team of opposition volunteers guarding ballot papers to ensure nothing untoward happened to the votes.
Mr Kilicdaroglu, 74, has lost several elections as leader of his Republican People’s Party. But this time his message of scrapping the president’s excessive powers struck a chord.
Turks have also been reeling from a cost-of-living crisis with 44% inflation, made only worse by Mr Erdogan’s unorthodox economic policies. It was of little surprise that Turkey’s Bist-100 stock market dropped 2.7% on Monday morning, and the Turkish lira fell back too.