Top 5 oddities in Turkey’s presidential election

Turkey's presidential election was historic on many levels, but these oddities may have passed under the radar...
1) Uncle Mehmet, ‘the 130-year-old voter’

Turkey’s semi-official Anadolu Agency (AA) claimed in a report that the world’s oldest person showed up to vote in the election on Aug. 10, 130-year-old Mehmet Esen from the eastern province of Siirt. However, Esen’s birth record shows that he was born on May 24, 1329 in the old Rumi calendar, corresponding to June 6, 1913 in today’s Gregorian calendar. So, Esen is actually 101 years old.

2) Erdoğan’s son almost fell from the balcony

Bilal Erdoğan, the youngest son of Turkey’s president-elect, stumbled and almost fell from the balcony, minutes before his father’s much-anticipated victory speech in front of his party headquarters. Berat Albayrak, the president-elect’s son-in-law, was on hand to help Bilal back to his feet.

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3) Votes for musicians, footballers

More than 700,000 votes were declared invalid, with many cast for people who were not among the three candidates. A voter in the western province of Bilecik glued a photo of Zeki Müren, the legendary Turkish musician, to the ballot, writing some of his lyrics by adapting them to include a rhyming pro-Gezi message: “Here is me, confronting TOMAs (riot control vehicles), Zeki Müren.” 

Others voted for Demba Ba, the new star signing of Istanbul football club Beşiktaş, as well as the late Necmettin Erbakan, a former prime minister who once mentored...