ANKARA/ISTANBUL, May 28 (Xinhua) -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the opposition presidential candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu on Sunday cast ballots in the presidential election runoff that is expected to be a tight race between the two candidates.
Erdogan and his wife traveled to a school in the Uskudar district on the Asian side of Istanbul, Türkiye's largest city, and cast their ballots.
"For the first time, we are witnessing a two-round election," 69-year-old Erdogan told reporters, adding that he believes the voting will end rapidly.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the 74-year-old leader of the center-left Republican People's Party and the chief opponent of the incumbent president, cast his vote in the capital Ankara.
"I invite all our citizens to vote, for democracy to come to this country," Kilicdaroglu said in a brief statement to reporters after casting his ballot.
The polls opened at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 5 p.m. local time. Unofficial results are expected at about 9 p.m. local time.
Almost 54 million people cast ballots in the presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14, contributing to a high voter turnout of 86.98 percent.
None of the candidates had received more than 50 percent of the votes needed to call a winner in the first round. Erdogan won 49.52 percent of the votes and Kilicdaroglu 44.88 percent. Meanwhile, the third-place candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, gained 5.17 percent and withdrew from the race to back Erdogan. ■
