Erdogan wins historic Turkiye runoff

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared victory Sunday in a historic runoff vote that posed the biggest challenge to his 20 years of transformative but divisive rule.
The 69-year-old leader overcame Turkiye's worst economic crisis in a generation and the most powerful opposition alliance to ever face his party to take an unassailable lead.
Near complete results showed him leading opposition rival Kemal Kilicdaroglu by four percentage points.
"We will be ruling the country for the coming five years," Erdogan told his cheering supporters from atop a bus in his home district in Istanbul.
"God willing, we will be deserving of your trust."
Turkiye's main cities erupted in car-honking jubilation while world leaders started congratulating the veteran leader on extending his rule for one last time.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said it showed Turks' support for "your efforts to strengthen state sovereignty and pursue an independent foreign policy".
French President Emmanuel Macron pledged "to continue to move forward" on joint global challenges and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky pledged to "further strengthen our strategic partnership".
Former US president Donald Trump hailed Erdogan's "big and well deserved victory".
Traffic on Istanbul's iconic Taksim Square ground to a halt and huge crowds of singing and flag-waving supporters gathered outside his presidential palace in Ankara.
Turkiye's longest-serving leader was tested like never before in what was widely seen as the country's most consequential election in its 100-year history as a post-Ottoman republic.
Kilicdaroglu pushed Erdogan into Turkiye's first runoff on May 14 and narrowed the margin further in the second round.
Kilicdaroglu did not formally concede defeat in a brief statement he read to reporters in Ankara.
But he expressed "real sadness about the big difficulties awaiting the country" -- a comment suggesting acceptance that Erdogan would run Turkiye until 2028.
Kilicdaroglu re-emerged a transformed man after the first round.
The former civil servant's message of social unity and freedoms gave way to desk-thumping speeches about the need to immediately expel migrants and fight terrorism.
His right-wing turn was targeted at nationalists who emerged as the big winners of the parallel parliamentary elections.