First estimates starts to come in for Sunday, May 14 elections in Turkey. Incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his opponent Kemal Kiliçdaroglu are both claiming the lead. According to opposition leaders, the presidential party is seeking to contest every ballot.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took an early lead on Sunday in a landmark election that could extend his two-decade grip on power or put the mostly Muslim nation on a more secular course.The Anadolu state news agency showed the 69-year-old picking up more than 51 percent of the vote and his secular rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu trailing with nearly 43 percent.But Anadolu’s figures were based on around 60 percent of the ballots and Kilicdaroglu claimed that his party’s own vote count showed him winning.

Most of Anadolu’s early votes appeared to be coming from heavily pro-government districts and Erdogan’s lead was shrinking as the number of counted ballots grew.

A separate count reported by the pro-opposition Anka news site showed the two leaders locked in a dead heat and falling just short of the 50-percent threshold needed to avoid a May 28 runoff.

The mayor of Ankara’s Cankaya district — the Turkish capital’s largest and an opposition bastion — said the AKP was contesting “almost every ballot box”, delaying the submission of results in an area where Kilicdaroglu was expected to perform strongly.

Most pre-election polls showed 74-year-old opposition leader Kilicdaroglu enjoying a slight advantage over Erdogan.

Turnout was expected to be huge in what has effectively become a referendum on Turkey’s longest-serving leader and his Islamic-rooted party.

Erdogan has steered the nation of 85 million through one of its most transformative and divisive eras in the post-Ottoman state’s 100-year history.

Turkey has grown into a military and geopolitical heavyweight that plays roles in conflicts from Syria to Ukraine.

The NATO member’s footprint in both Europe and the Middle East makes the election’s outcome as critical for Washington and Brussels as it is for Damascus and Moscow.

Erdogan is lionised across swathes of conservative Turkey that witnessed a development boom during his rule.

More religious voters are also grateful for his decision to lift secular-era restrictions on headscarves and introduce more Islamic schools.

The emergence of Kilicdaroglu and his six-party opposition alliance — the type of broad-based coalition Erdogan excelled at forging throughout his career — gives foreign allies and Turkish voters a clear alternative.

A runoff on May 28 could give Erdogan time to regroup and reframe the debate.

But he would still be hounded by Turkey’s most dire economic crisis of his time in power, and disquiet over his government’s stuttering response to the February earthquake that claimed more than 50,000 lives.

Malo Pinatel, with AFP