German Turks also clearly in favour of Erdogan in run-off election

Supporters of Turkish President Erdogan drive jubilantly through the north of Duisburg in a motorcade with Turkish flags. © Christoph Reichwein/dpa

In 2018, Erdogan received 64.8 percent of the vote among the German-Turks. What about the approval rate in the run-off election?

Istanbul/Berlin - As in the first round of voting, a clear majority for Recep Tayyip Erdogan is emerging among eligible voters in Germany in the run-off election for the Turkish presidency.

With around 78.5 percent of the ballot boxes counted from Germany, the incumbent received 67.6 percent of the votes in this group, according to figures from the state news agency Anadolu on Sunday evening.

In the first round of voting, he received 65.5 percent of the vote among the German-Turks. Official figures from the electoral authority on the result of the run-off election in Germany are not yet available.

Erdogan wins many votes among voters in Germany

Erdogan is thus likely to do much better among voters in Germany than overall. According to the state news agency, the Turkish president received 99 percent of the vote after counting almost 52 percent of the votes, while his challenger Kemal Kilicdaroglu received 48 percent.

In 2018, Erdogan had already received 64.8 percent of the vote among the German-Turks. According to observers, there are several reasons for Erdogan's high popularity among this group: For example, many migrant workers with a religious-conservative attitude came to Germany from the Anatolian heartland of Turkey. Erdogan's ruling AKP party also has good structures in Germany today. According to observers, many households are dominated by Turkish media, much of which is controlled by the government. According to Yunus Ulusoy of the Center for Turkish Studies, there is also a kind of protest attitude due to experiences of discrimination, especially among younger voters in Germany.

In Germany, around 1.5 million German-Turks are eligible to vote. In the run-off election - as in the first round - they did not vote on election day on Sunday, but a few days before. By last Wednesday, they had to have cast their votes. Dpa