Turkey's incumbent President Erdogan leads in first unofficial reports of runoff election count

Preliminary, unofficial results from Turkiye's official Anadolu news agency showed incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead with 49 per cent of ballot boxes counted, while a competing news agency gave a slight lead to the opposition candidate. Anadolu showed Erdogan at 56 per cent, and his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, at 44 per cent. Meanwhile, the ANKA news agency, close to the opposition, showed the results at 51 per cent for Kilicdaroglu and Erdogan at 49 per cent, with 52 per cent of ballot boxes counted.

The news agencies get their data from completed ballot box counts that are gathered by personnel on the field, and are strong in different regions, explaining some of the variation in preliminary data. Anadolu's numbers were disputed in the May 14 first round election by opposition politicians, who said the news agency was biased in favour of Erdogan.

Anadolu rejected the accusation and the final results did not reveal a discrepancy. Erdogan came out more than 4 per cent ahead of Kilicdaroglu, but just short of outright victory, leading to the second round on Sunday. Turkiye's electoral board sends its own data to political parties throughout the vote count but doesn't declare official results until days later.