Turkey: Erdogan has no rivals in 2014 presidential vote

ANKARA - Polls on the 2014 presidential elections in Turkey show President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as the winning candidate. If he were to win, the country's Islamic nationalist president would become the most powerful ruler since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey 90 years ago.

Turks will head to the polls for the first time to elect their president in 2014. Turkish presidents were formerly elected by Parliament. Surveys show that 53 percent of voters intend to cast their ballots for Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP). The AKP Party has been in power since 2002 in a decade marked by an unprecedented economic boom during which Turkey became the world's 16th economic power and an emerging regional power. Turkey's ambition is to become one of the world's ten most powerful economies by 2023. If he were to win the five-year presidential mandate in 2014, Erdogan would be one of the main political actors in the region and the world. So far 41 percent of voters say they will vote for Erdogan, according to polls, while only 6.4 percent say they will cast their ballot for his Social Democratic opponent Kemal Kilicdaroglu. (...)