Police forces accompany supporters of Turkish President Erdogan in the north of Duisburg. © Christoph Reichwein/dpa
Overall, it was close for Recep Tayyip Erdogan this time. However, he can continue to rely on his voters in Germany.
Istanbul/Berlin - In the run-off election for the Turkish presidency, a clear majority of eligible voters in Germany voted for Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At the level of around 95 percent of the counted ballot boxes from Germany, the incumbent came to 67.4 percent of the votes in this group, according to figures from the state news agency Anadolu in the evening. Official figures from the electoral authority on the result of the run-off election in Germany were not yet available.
Earlier, Erdogan had declared himself the winner of the election - even before the end of the counting of votes. After counting 99.43 percent of the votes, the electoral authority finally announced that Erdogan had received 52.14 percent and opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu 47.86 percent of the votes.
Erdogan once again performed significantly better among voters in Germany than overall. In the first round of voting two weeks ago, he received 65.5 percent of the vote among the German-Turks. In the 2018 election, it was 64.8 percent.
Many reasons for Erdogan's success in Germany
According to Yunus Ulusoy of the Center for Turkish Studies in Essen, there are many reasons why Erdogan is so well received by eligible voters in Germany: On the one hand, many people who came to Germany in the course of labor migration in the middle of the last century come from the Anatolian heartland. Conservative religious lifestyles prevailed there - the values have been passed on to the next generations, Ulusoy said.
Especially among the younger generation, which has actually been completely socialized in Germany, there is also sometimes an attitude of defiance. Some hurtful experiences have been made that being a Turk or a Muslim in Germany is not of great value, Ulusoy said. "And then comes a president who gives them the feeling of recognizing this value, emphasizing their belonging to Turkey and, last but not least, addressing their emotions, their hearts. And Erdogan is doing that very, very well."
Supporters of Turkish President Erdogan drive jubilantly through the north of Duisburg in a motorcade with Turkish flags. © Christoph Reichwein/dpa
In addition, Erdogan has a powerful organizational structure in Germany, he said. "The conservative milieus in Germany are well organized." Many households are also dominated by Turkish media - much of which is controlled by the government. In the elections in Germany, however, he did not notice anything that would have been noticeably unfair, Ulusoy said. In the polling stations, the opposition party CHP was represented everywhere. It was a very peaceful election, considering how politically divided Turkish society is.
Motorcades and jubilation in Duisburg
In the evening, numerous supporters of Erdogan took to the streets in Duisburg. In the north of the city - where many people of Turkish origin live - there were several hundred vehicles and several hundred people on foot, according to police. Except for the occasional ignition of pyrotechnics, it remained peaceful, according to a police spokesman. A video posted on Twitter showed a motorcade in Munich. In Essen, according to the police, there was a smaller demonstration in front of the consulate general.
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In Berlin, too, the probable victory of the incumbent president has already been celebrated. Around the Kottbusser Tor there were isolated smaller motorcades of supporters in the evening. In pubs in the city, there was controversy within the Turkish community. "We're not happy," said Turkish Cansa and Billur (both 30) in a pub at Kottbusser Tor. The 46-year-old Berna expressed her conviction that Erdogan's foreseeable victory will further divide the Turkish community in the capital. "The fronts are very hardened," she told the German Press Agency on Sunday evening. Dpa