ANKARA (Reuters) - Bemused by President Tayyip Erdogan's sudden absence from the air waves after his ruling AK Party lost its parliamentary majority two days ago, Turks have been sharing a ticking online clock marking his radio silence.
Television stations had broadcast Erdogan speeches as often as three times a day in the weeks running up to Sunday's parliamentary election, which he had hoped would deliver a strong enough AKP victory to boost his presidential powers.
Instead, the vote left the ruling party unable to form a government alone for the first time in more than a decade.
Modern Turkey's most popular but divisive leader issued a brief written statement on Monday but has otherwise been out of the public eye for nearly 48 hours, according to the clock, which was widely shared on social media.
"Turkey is enjoying the silence," the Cumhuriyet newspaper, a fierce critic of the government, said on its front page.
(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz and Jonny Hogg; Writing by Jonny Hogg; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Gareth Jones)