Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suspended election campaigning after he fell ill during a live TV interview and the broadcast was abruptly brought to a halt.
After a 20-minute break, he returned to say he had developed a serious stomach flu after two days of intense campaigning.
Cameras abruptly cut away from Erdoğan to one of his interviewers, Hasan Öztürk, who looked perturbed and began to rise from his chair before the broadcast cut entirely.
In footage shot in the same location and distributed by the president’s Justice and Development party (AKP), Erdoğan explains that he contracted stomach flu following intense work on the campaign trail weeks before the pivotal election.
He later posted on his social media that he will rest at home upon the advice of his doctors, adding that with God’s permission, he and his team will continue their campaign from the next day.”
The vice president, Fuat Oktay, would attend campaign events across central Turkey in his place.
Turkey is holding parliamentary and presidential elections on May 14, when Erdoğan faces a concerted challenge from a six-party opposition striving to unseat him after 20 years in power.
Many polls give his main challenger, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, a slight lead, amid discontent with an ongoing economic crisis and the government’s response to deadly earthquakes that killed more than 50,000 people in Turkey, and 8,000 in Syria.
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