Recep Tayyip Erdogan has won the country's key presidential vote, electoral officials have said, in a result that will allow him to keep his seat with increased powers and become Turkey's first executive president.
With 99.2 percent of ballots counted, Erdogan received on Sunday more than half the votes required to secure an outright victory, Sadi Guven, the head of the Supreme Election Committee (YSK), told reporters in the capital, Ankara.
Earlier, state-run Anadolu news agency had reported that Erdogan's share of the vote stood at 52.5 percent.
"Our democracy has won, the people's will has won, Turkey has won," Erdogan told a crowd of enthusiastic supporters in the capital, Ankara, thanking the Turkish citizens who cast their ballots in an election that saw a record turnout of 87 percent.
The 64-year-old also declared victory for the People's Alliance, a bloc between his ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), saying they had won a parliamentary majority in the legislative elections, also held on Sunday.
Before heading to Ankara, Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey for more than 15 years as prime minister and president, had also addressed a crowd of cheering, flag-waving supporters from the top of a bus in the country's largest city of Istanbul. (Aljazeera)