Recep Tayyip Erdogan is favoured to win Turkey’s presidential election

HEADING INTOCHP of Turkey’s presidential election on May 14th, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the opposition’s joint candidate, campaigned on a message of hope, inclusion and economic recovery. For the second, which takes place on May 28th, he has run a decidedly more negative campaign, doubling down on his pledge to send millions of Syrian refugees based in Turkey home and ruling out peace talks with Kurdish separatist rebels.Two weeks ago, Mr Kilicdaroglu became the first politician ever to force Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has ruled Turkey for over 20 years, into a runoff. But he performed well below . The leader of the centre-left Republican People’s Party () took 44.9% of the vote, much less than pollsters had given him on the eve of the elections, compared to 49.5% for Mr Erdogan. Mr Kilicdaroglu had hoped to win a majority and avoid a second round. Instead, he barely avoided a first-round defeat.