Erdogan Hails Victory in Turkish Referendum

Soon after polling stations in Turkey closed on Sunday, the state news agency Anadolu Agency, citing 99.9 per cent of counted ballots, announced that 51.3 per cent of voters had backed a constitutional amendment granting additional powers to President Erdogan.

According to Anadolu, the turnout was 85.6 per cent. It said 48.7 per cent of voters had voted against the proposal.

A majority of voters in most of the bigger cities, such as Istanbul, Ankara, Adana, Antalya, Izmir and the mostly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, voted against the proposed changes.

Official results from the Supreme Election Council, the YSK, were expected to come on Monday morning.

"We have won. There is no discussion that victory is ours. More than 25 million people voted in favour of the change. This is the greatest reform of our nation," Erdogan said in a televised statement from the Presidential Palace in Istanbul.

However, the opposition bloc alleged election fraud and said it was certain that 52 per cent of Turks had voted "no" in the referendum.

Opposition leaders also claimed the Anadolu Agency had manipulated the results and that the Election Commission, which they said was controlled by Erdogan, assisted in this.

"These results are questionable, we will not accept them," Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the main opposition Republican People's Party, CHP, said after the first results.

"The results lack legitimacy because of the YSK's policies and because of several serious irregularities," he added.

Opposition officials and experts said one irregularity was a controversial decision - made on the referendum day - by the YSK to accept unsealed ballots.

According to many experts and the opposition, this was violation of the constitution...