Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been named the winner of Turkey’s presidential election after the country’s national electoral board  pronounced he held an “absolute majority” of valid votes.

Head of the Supreme Election Council, Sadi Guven, said 97.7 of votes had been counted and the remaining votes would not affect the outcome of Mr Erdogan’s re-election.

The official pronouncement came just hours after Mr Erdogan declared himself the winner of a high-stakes Turkish election that consolidates his power over a nation he has ruled for 15 years.

Mr Guven said unofficial results showed five parties had passed the 10 percent election threshold required to enter parliament.

They included Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, its allied Nationalist Movement Party, the main secular opposition Republican People’s Party, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party and the centre-right Good Party.

While Mr Erdogan met crowds of cheering supporters, the opposition cried foul, claiming that state media and the election commission manipulated the results.

“Citizens have cast their votes and spoken clearly,”Mr  Erdogan said at a victory speech in Istanbul.

“We will do more for the nation. The ongoing quarrels that took place during the campaign, we will now have to leave them behind and start serving the nation.”

The President narrowly won a referendum last year to transform the country’s parliamentary system to a powerful executive presidency, in what his critics called a blatant power grab.

Turkish state news agency Anadolu, the only media distributing election results, reported that the Mr Erdogan easily claimed 52.7 per cent of the vote with more than 96 per cent of the ballots counted.

Muharrem Ince and his Republican People’s Party (CHP), the main Turkish opposition in the election, said that around half the ballot boxes had yet to be counted, calling on party monitors to remain with the ballot boxes and keep watching.

A spokesman for Mr Erodgan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Mahir Unal, was quoted by CNN as dismissing the allegations, warning party leaders of “harsh outcomes” to any provocations.

If no presidential candidate wins more than 50 per cent in Sunday’s vote, a second round run-off will be held on July 8.

Turnout was high at around 87 per cent of for both contests, the state broadcaster said.

Voicing opposition concerns about possible electoral fraud, Mr Ince earlier told reporters outside the High Electoral Board (YSK) after polling stations had closed that citizens should protect ballot boxes. He also urged YSK members to “do your job the right way”, adding he believed the results would be “very good”.

Mr Erdogan said there had been no serious voting violations.

Sunday’s vote ushers in a powerful new executive presidency long sought by Mr Erdogan and backed by a small majority of Turks in a 2017 referendum. Critics say it will further erode democracy in the NATO member state and entrench one-man rule.

Earlier on Sunday, a crowd of Mr Erdogan’s supporters chanted his name as he emerged from a school after voting in Turkey’s largest city Istanbul, shaking hands with people amid tight security.

“Turkey is staging a democratic revolution,” he told reporters in the polling station.

“With the presidential system, Turkey is seriously raising the bar, rising above the level of contemporary civilisations.”

Mr Erdogan argues the new powers will better enable him to tackle the nation’s economic problems – the lira has lost 20 per cent against the US dollar this year – and deal with Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey and in neighbouring Iraq and Syria.

But he reckoned without Mr Ince, a former physics teacher and veteran CHP lawmaker, whose feisty performance at campaign rallies has galvanised Turkey’s long-demoralised and divided opposition.

-with agencies