Opinion polls predicted a win for opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the election. However, President Erdogan received 49.5% of the votes, making it a serious test of his twenty-year iron rule. Turkey’s economy has soaring inflation, a plummeting lira, and a cost-of-living crisis partly caused by Erdogan’s wacky economic policies. Also the shambolic response to February’s earthquake which killed 50,000 and displaced 1.5 million added to Erdogan’s many corruption and mishandling scandals. Could mild-mannered technocrat Kemal Kilicdaroglu, who is capable of uniting opposition parties of left and right, be what Turkish voters want in the run-off on 28 May? He has pledged to rule Turkey ‘with consultations and compromise’. A million Turkish expats living in the USA, Germany and Canada voted in the first round of the election: Kilicdaroglu has vowed to win the second round.