The Turkish people go to the polls this Sunday to elect a president and renew their parliament.
Voting centers opened at 08:00 (0500 GMT) in Istanbul and Ankara, according to agencies.
What is voted?
Both the Parliament, with 600 seats, and the position of president, who is also the head of the Executive with broad powers, are renewed, reports EFE.
The country is polarized between the two main candidates, the conservative Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 69, in power for twenty years, and his opponent Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, 74, head of a secular social democratic party, the CHP.
To ensure victory in the first round, they need at least 50% of the votes plus one.
64 million voters, who will also elect their parliament, are registered in Türkiye, a country of 85 million inhabitants, which has a tradition of voting with participation rates above 80%.
The latest polls anticipate a very close race between the two main candidates.
The third in dispute is Sinan Ogan, to whom the polls attribute just a few points.
Kiliçdaroglu, the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, leads a six-party coalition that spans from the nationalist right to the liberal center-left.
He also received the support of the pro-Kurdish HDP party, the third largest political force in the country.
Some 64 million citizens, 3.5 million of them abroad, have the right to vote, and participation is usually greater than 85%.
