Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan waves to the crowd in Istanbul yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan won Turkey's first presidential election yesterday after securing a majority of the votes, the High Election Board (YSK) said, citing provisional figures.

'The provisional results show that Erdogan has the majority of the valid votes,' YSK chairman Sadi Guven told a news conference.

'Tomorrow I will provide the numbers. We have received more than 99 per cent (of the votes). Tomorrow we will announce the provisional results.'

After an election on Sunday that his opponents say may create an increasingly authoritarian state, broadcasters said Erdogan had 52.0 per cent of the vote, 13 points more than his closest rival. Such a result would rule out a runoff round and seal Erdogan’s place in history as Turkey’s first directly elected head of state, a role expected to enhance his power.

In a Twitter message confirmed by his office, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said: “Erdogan has become the first president elected by the people.”

The deputy chairman of his ruling AK party said Erdogan won with just over 52 percent.

Erdogan himself said “the people have shown their will”.

Turkey has emerged as a regional economic force under Erdogan, who, as Prime Minister for more than a decade, has ridden a wave of religiously conservative support to transform the secular republic founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923.

But his critics warn that a President Erdogan, with his roots in political Islam and intolerance of dissent, would lead the Nato member and EU candidate further away from Ataturk’s secular ideals.

The main Opposition candidate, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, was on 38.8 per cent with 90 per cent of votes counted while Selahattin Demirtas of the pro-Kurdish, left-wing People’s Democratic Party was on 9.2 percent, said television stations CNN Turk and NTV.

Turkey’s electoral authorities are not officially due to announce their first results until today, with final figures due later in the week.

In a tea house in the working-class Istanbul district of Tophane, men watching election coverage on television praised Erdogan as a pious man of the people who had boosted Turkey’s status both economically and on the international stage.

“Erdogan is on the side of the underdog. He is the defender against injustice.

“While the Arab world was silent, he spoke out against Israel on Gaza,” said Murat, 42, a jeweller, who declined to give his family name.

“This country was ruined by the old politicians. They lied to us. They caused economic crises, the PKK violence,” he said.