Voting starts in presidential runoff in Turkey

Voting starts in Turkey's presidential runoff on Sunday in which incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his leading contender Kemal Kilicdaroglu race for the presidency.

The polls opened at 8 a.m. (0500 GMT) and will close at 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) local time. Unofficial results are expected at roughly 9 p.m. local time (1800 GMT), Xinhua news agency reported.

The presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14 saw a high voter turnout at 86.98 percent as almost 54 million citizens went to the polls. Nearly 50,000 new voters who recently turned 18 are eligible to vote in the runoff.

In the first round of the presidential election, incumbent President Erdogan had earned 49.52 per cent of the vote while Kilicdaroglu received 44.88 per cent. Meanwhile, a third candidate, nationalist politician Sinan Ogan, gained 5.17 per cent.