Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will accept the outcome of Sunday’s elections, addressing criticism from his rival that members of the government might be unwilling to transfer power peacefully.
(Bloomberg) — Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will accept the outcome of Sunday’s elections, addressing criticism from his rival that members of the government might be unwilling to transfer power peacefully.
The governing party and its allies “will consider any outcome at the ballot box as legitimate” and will do “whatever democracy requires,” Erdogan said in a TV interview late Friday.
Erdogan’s comments came shortly after his key rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu attacked the president and his allies for showing signs of reluctance concede the election in the event of an opposition win. With two days left before Turkey’s drama-filled election campaign concludes, emotions are running high among the country’s 64 million voters. Earlier on Friday, Kilicdaroglu accused Russia of trying to influence the election’s outcome, an allegation that the Kremlin has denied.
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