Erdogan is people's choice for Time honor

NEW YORK, Dec. 13 (UPI) -- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the people's choice for Time magazine's person of the year and also led Time's poll as the least popular figure.

Erdogan blew away the competition in Time's 2011 Person of the Year annual online poll, receiving 122,928 votes nominating him as the most influential person of the year, the magazine said Monday.

While the people favored Erdogan, Time's editors decide the Person of the Year honoree, which will be revealed this week.

Placing second was Barcelona soccer player Lionel Messi and the 99 percent movement protesting the inequity of wealth distribution was third.

Results of the online poll also indicated Erdogan shouldn't be Time's Person of the Year, with more than 180,000 "no" votes cast for the lauded politician. The wealthy 1 percent was the second least-favorite candidate.

Other people landing in Time's top 10 were Steve Jobs, the Apple Inc. co-founder who died Oct. 5 was fifth; Navy SEAL Team 6, which stormed the Pakistani compound of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden and killed him, was eighth; and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who has made a remarkable recovery after being shot in the head in January, was 10th.

Casey Anthony, the young Florida mother who was acquitted of killing her toddler daughter, was the third least-popular candidate in the online poll. Politicians also drew low marks. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., a Republican presidential hopeful, was the fifth least favorite, ousted Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was eighth from the bottom and U.S. President Barack Obama was 10th.