Baku, May 14, AZERTAC

Voting for presidential and the 28th term parliamentary elections in Türkiye has started at 8 a.m. local time and will last until 5 p.m.

More than 191,000 ballot boxes were set up across the country to elect the president and members of parliament, who will serve for five years. A total of 60.697.843 million voters will cast votes in Türkiye. Around 5 million will vote for the first time in the country.

The election process for the Turkish voters living abroad lasted from April 27 to May 9. Over 1.8 million Turks out of the 3.4 million voters registered in the foreign electoral roll have already cast their votes to elect the country’s new president and parliamentary representatives. Voting at customs will end today at 17:00.

Voters will choose between the current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is seeking reelection, Chairman of the Republican People's Party (CHP) Kemal Kilicdaroglu and the presidential candidate of Türkiye's Ata Alliance party Sinan Ogan. Muharrem Ince, another presidential contender, withdrew from the race on Thursday.

If none of the presidential candidates will gain more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round of the presidential elections, the second round of voting will be held on May 28. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the 2018 presidential elections with 52.6 percent of the vote.

Voters from 87 electoral districts will elect 600 members of parliament to the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye for a five year term, forming the country's 28th Parliament. A total of 24 political parties and 151 independent parliamentary candidates will compete.

According to Supreme Election Council (YSK) Chairman Ahmet Yener, the preliminary results for the elections will be announced on the same day. Radios and broadcasting organs will not be able to report news, make predictions and comment on election results until 6 p.m. on Election Day. Only news and communique to be given by the YSK about the election can be broadcast between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on radios and broadcasting organs.

All broadcasts will be released after 9 p.m. on Election Day, however, if deemed necessary by the YSK, it may be decided to release broadcasts at 9 p.m.

The presidential and parliamentary elections in Türkiye are followed with great interest around the world, especially in Azerbaijan.