The challengers had appeared to be heading into the presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14th with a good head of steam. 

But by 2am on the following day, with more than 96% of the ballot boxes opened, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the candidate of the Nation Alliance, a coalition of six opposition parties, had secured only 44.9% in the presidential election, according to Anadolu, the state news agency. 

That looked set to be enough to force Erdogan, who had by then received 49.4%, into a run-off. But it was well below what pollsters, as well as Kilicdaroglu himself, had expected. 

A third candidate, the nationalist Sinan Ogan, received 5.3% of the vote, a surprisingly strong showing. The second round will take place on May 28th.

Mr Kilicdaroglu’s alliance, headed by his own Republican People’s Party (CHP), performed even worse in the parliamentary vote, where it was projected to win only 35%, which Turkey’s complex electoral system is projected to translate into about 211 out of 600 seats. 

Erdogan’s bloc, known as the People’s Alliance, led by his own Justice and Development (AK) party and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), walked away with 45.8%, enough to retain a comfortable majority (an estimated 319 seats) in the assembly. A smaller opposition alliance headed by Turkey’s main Kurdish party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), received 10.3% (around 65 seats).