Up to 717,612 Turks living abroad have cast their votes in the second round of presidential-parliamentary elections since the polling kicked off early on Saturday, the supreme election commission declared on Sunday.
The commission, cited by the official news agency Anadolu, said 683,580 Turkish citizens cast their votes at the Turkish missions abroad and 340,32 others at border checkpoints.
Voting will proceed at the missions’ headquarters until May 24 and at the border points until May 28.
Turkey witnessed on May 14 the first round of the elections, marked with competition among top contenders; the incumbent president Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the Islam-oriented Justice and Development Party, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader the Republican People’s Party (CHP) and Sinan Ogan of the Nationalist Movement Party.
The election commission had declared holding of the second round of balloting after the two top contenders, Erdogan and Kilicdaroglu failed to garner 50 percent of the votes.
Erdogan had won 49.52 percent of the ballots and his rival bagged 44.88 percent of the papers, while Ogan had 5.17 percent.
Source: Kuwait News Agency