(Adds comments from leader saying “we lead,” and mayor saying opposition is on track to win presidency)
ANKARA, May 14 (Reuters) –
Turkey’s opposition presidential candidate said on Sunday “we are in the lead” in the first election result in which President Tayyip Erdogan’s 20-year rule was at stake, as opposition sources gave him a lead of more than a percentage point.
“We are leading,” Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the six-party opposition alliance said on Twitter.
Separately, four sources from the six-party opposition alliance told Reuters that according to initial results, Kilicdaroglu was leading Erdogan by a slim margin. By one count, Kilicdaroglu led by more than a percentage point.
The opposition mayors of Istanbul and Ankara also said Kilicdaroglu was on track for victory based on nearly a quarter of the ballot boxes counted. They warned against relying on the results of the state-run Anadolu Agency that gave Erdogan the first lead.
“We can say this easily: Mr. Kilicdaroglu is today announced as the 13th president of our country,” said Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a major opposition figure who would become vice president if his side won.
Earlier Faik Oztrak, spokesperson for the Republican People’s Party (CHP) of Kilicdaroglu, said they saw a positive picture even as Anadolu showed Erdogan with a lead of 52% to 41% based on initial results.
(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen Ece Toksabay and Jonathan Spicer; editing by Samia Nakhoul)
