The latest vote count showed the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) made off with 49% of the ballots cast, giving it 316 MPs at the parliament in Ankara.
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People wave flags outside the AK Party headquarters in Istanbul, yesterday following the outcome of a general election which swept the party back to a parliamentary majority. “Everybody is uneasy over how far can the ruling party go”.
Prime Minister Davutoglu tweeted simply “Elhamdulillah” (“Thanks be to god”) as the results were announced, before emerging from his family home in the central Anatolian city of Konya to briefly address crowds of cheering supporters.
The Republican People’s Party (CHP) received 25.41 percent (134 seats); the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) got 11.94 percent votes (41 seats); and the HDP secured 10.69 percent (59 seats). AKP’s vote tally jumped almost 9 percentage points. The secularist CHP was hovering around the same result as in June. But that trend appears to have been reversed, bolstering Turkish President and AKP founder Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hold over Turkish politics.
“This election will end Turkey’s period of transition, and should lead to a marked strengthening of the country’s economy”, said FXstreet analyst Valeria Bednarik. “Because of the fighting in this area, people don’t want to have fighting and they voted AKP, even if they are no AKP voters they voted for them to have normal lives”.
The victory however falls short of of the 330 parliament seats that would have given the party the power to call for a referendum to approve constitutional changes to create an executive presidency along the lines of the USA or France.
“The national will manifested itself on 1 November in favour of stability”, Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters on Monday (2 November) after praying at a mosque in Istanbul. But, here, the fact the elections resulted this way is that the palace’s aggressive and “otherizing” polices are accepted.
Turkey will thus return to single-party rule in an outcome that will boost Erdogan’s power but may deepen social divisions. The pro-Kurdish HDP crossed the 1o per cent threshold needed to claim seats.
HDP leaders attributed the drop-off in their votes to the violence and unfair election conditions.
“I regret to say that there wasn’t a fair or equal election…” It also faces threats from the Islamic State group (ISIS) and is struggling to cope with a refugee crisis caused by the ongoing war in Syria. Ankara also bombed several other PKK bases. He vowed to respect the result.
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“The people wanted calm, they wanted security, they didn’t want their peace disturbed”, Kurtulmus said.
