Polling underway for Turkey elections
Ankara, June 24 : Polling was underway on Sunday in Turkey's parliamentary and presidential elections where incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seeking re-election for a new five-year term which he says will bring prosperity and stability to the country.
Polling began at 8 a.m. and will continue till 5.00 p.m. There are a total of 56,322,632 registered voters with 180,065 ballot boxes across the country, reports Anadolu news agency.
Erdogan, who is representing the People's Alliance formed by the Justice and Development (AK) Party and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), must secure more than 50 per cent of the vote for an outright win. If the threshold is not reached, a runoff could be held on July 8 between the leading two contenders, Hurriyet Daily News reported.
Five candidates are in the fray against Erdogan who has been in power since he was elected Prime Minister in 2003.
Deemed his main rival, physics teacher Muharrem Ince is backed by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and has wooed crowds with an engaging election campaign.
His rallies in Turkey's three main cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir drew massive numbers.
Also challenging Erdogan is former Interior Minister Meral Aksener, Hurriyet reported.
The only female candidate, Aksener broke away from Turkey's main nationalist party over its support for Erdogan and formed the centre-right and nationalist Good Party (IYI Party).
Turkey will also be electing 600 lawmakers to parliament - 50 more than in the previous assembly. For the parliamentary polls, eight political parties are in the fray.
Voters will cast two separate ballot papers in the same envelope -- one for the presidential and one for the parliamentary elections.
After the voting ends, ballots cast for the presidential candidates will be counted first.
Some 1.49 million expats voted in a 13-day period between June 7-19 at 123 Turkish missions abroad.
Whoever wins the election will be given sweeping new powers, as the role of Prime Minister is dissolved and the President gains the authority to issue laws by decree, reports CNN.
Erdogan has dominated Turkish politics since 2003.
He implemented policies that encouraged sustained economic growth and development, challenged Turkey's secular foundations by bringing Islamic conservatism to public life and gutted public institutions by having tens of thousands arrested following a failed military coup in 2016.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
