Majority of Turkish expat votes go to Erdogan
With 98.65 percent of the overseas votes counted, Erdogan has won 62.51 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results.
ANKARA
Outgoing Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has garnered most of the overseas votes in Turkey's first direct presidential election.
The August 10 election was the first time Turks voted directly for their president. The head-of-state was previously selected by members of parliament.
The turnout at voting stations in more than 50 countries and customs gates however was low, with only around 411,000 of the 2.7 million expat voters casting ballots between July 31 and August 2.
With 98.65 percent of the votes in a total of 1,187 ballot boxes counted, Erdogan secured 62.51 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the joint candidate of Turkey's two largest opposition parties -- Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Movement Party -- claimed 29.21 percent of the votes, followed by Selahattin Demirtas -- candidate of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democracy Party -- with 8.28 percent.
Here is the latest distribution of votes cast in some key countries for Turkey's presidential poll as of 3 a.m. on Monday Turkish time (00:00 GMT):
| COUNTRIES | ERDOGAN | DEMIRTAS | IHSANOGLU | Opened Boxes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 16.15% | 6.12% | 77.73% | 100% |
| Germany | 68.93% | 7.44% | 23.63% | 100% |
| Austria | 80.22% | 4.81% | 14.97% | 100% |
| China | 25.27% | 5.86% | 68.86% | 100% |
| France | 65.95% | 18.94% | 15.11% | 95.50% |
| United Kingdom | 23.49% | 26.83% | 49.68% | 100% |
| Canada | 33.13% | 15.29% | 51.58% | 90.91% |
| Russia | 29.05% | 7.30% | 63.65% | 100% |
| Saudi Arabia | 80.83% | 1.11% | 18.05% | 100% |
| Ukraine | 48.17% | 7.80% | 44.04% | 100% |
| Hungary | 52.57% | 12.13% | 35.29% | 100% |
| Norway | 55.20% | 14.40% | 30.40% | 100% |
| Sweden | 51.11% | 16.25% | 32.64% | 100% |
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