ANKARA
Turkish President Abdullah Gul voted in the presidential election on Sunday.
“I hope the presidential election will be beneficial for Turkey, I hope it will bring goodness,” he said Gul after placing his vote in Ankara.
Gul was pictured with Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe election observers after voting.
Turks are voting for the country’s first directly elected president, as previous presidents were selected by lawmakers in the Turkish Grand National Assembly.
More than 53 million Turks are eligible to vote, which is widely seen as a referendum on the leadership of current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, standing for the Justice and Development Party.
Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu is the joint presidential candidate for the Republican People's Party and the Nationalist Movement Party while Selahattin Demirtas is standing for the Peoples’ Democratic Party.
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