(10 Aug 2014) Polls closed Turkey on Sunday after the country voted in its first direct presidential election, a watershed event in the country's 91-year history.
Later on Sunday it was announced that Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the country's first direct presidential election in the first round, an unofficial vote count showed, ensuring he remains at the country's helm for
at least another five years.
"It is understood that Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won an absolute majority of the votes," election commission head Sadi Guven said in Ankara.
He added that no ballots would be printed for a runoff that would have been held had nobody won an absolute majority, and that the official results would be announced on Monday.
Erdogan's main rival, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, conceded defeat in a brief speech in Istanbul.
Now in his third term as prime minister at the head of the Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party, or AKP, Erdogan has been a polarising figure.
He is fervently supported by many as a man of the people who has led Turkey through a period of economic prosperity.
His critics, however, view him as an increasingly autocratic leader bent on concentrating power and imposing his religious and conservative views on a country founded on strong secular traditions.
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