On Monday, Turkey is heading for the first time in its history towards a second round of the presidential elections, following a disputed first round.

And it must be decided on May 28 that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or his main rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, will win.

This comes as the final results of the presidential and legislative elections that took place on Sunday are still awaiting release. And 64 million Turkish voters turned out to the polls, with the initial participation rate reaching 90 percent.

With more than 99 percent of the votes counted, Erdogan won 49.4 percent of the vote against 44.95 percent for his main opponent, the Social Democrats, a better result than expected for the president compared to recent opinion polls.

However, this result is not suitable for the opposition camp, which has called in recent weeks to "finish (the elections) in the first round," and confirmed on Sunday evening that it is "in the lead."

"If our nation wants a second round, then we will win the second round," said Kilicdaroglu, who heads a broad alliance of six opposition parties, noting that "the desire for change in society is greater than 50 percent."

Erdogan also spoke at night in front of a crowd of his supporters. "I believe from the bottom of my heart that we will continue to serve our people in the next five years," said the president, who has been in power since 2003.

Erdogan was re-elected in 2018 in the first round of the presidential elections.

In recent weeks, he had doubled down on election promises to try to mitigate the very high inflation hitting the country.

Meanwhile, the president's Justice and Development Party and its allies are on track to retain a majority in Parliament.
However, in light of the atmosphere of uncertainty, the main index of the Istanbul Stock Exchange fell by 4 percent on Monday.

The outcome of the second round will depend in part on a third man, Sinan Ogan (nationalist), who won about 5 percent of the votes in the first round, but has not yet called on his supporters to support one of the two candidates.

In Istanbul's Sishane district, opinions were divided Monday morning over the verdict, which is expected to be issued at the polls on May 28.

Batool Yilmaz, 26, thought that "Kilichdar Oglu could win if he made an alliance with Sinan Ogan." However, she added, the results may be "close".

A few meters away, Hamdi Karam Mahmoud, 40, who works in the tourism sector, said, "Tayyip Erdogan will win. He is a real leader, the Turks trust him and he has a vision for Turkey."

"Sure, there are things that have to improve, in the economy, in education, in the refugee policy. But we know he's the one who can fix all of this," he added. The two camps fought the battle of numbers until the night, and they also ordered their observers to remain in the vote count centers "until the end."

Kilicdaroglu's camp directly objected to the preliminary numbers, which gave Erdogan a comfortable lead, stressing that the results of the polling stations most suitable for the opposition candidate had not yet been calculated, especially due to the multiple appeals.

The pro-government newspaper, Sabah, said that the outgoing president's release of the results of the first round "is considered a great success."