According to preliminary results compiled by Anadolu Agency, the AK Party secured 317 seats at the 550-seat Grand National Assembly, increasing its vote rate by 8.61 points.
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For now, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stands by his lofty goals for the tourism industry.
And even as worries persisted about the polarization of Turkish society and a drift toward authoritarianism, the AKP was close enough that many here predict it will be only a matter of time before Erdogan’s party secures additional support to move forward with a new constitution.
The overall verdict of the Organisation for the Security and Cooperation of Europe (OSCE) was that the elections were mainly free and fair, despite the hard security situation in the troubled southeast, which prevented the European monitors from deploying there.
The AK party was followed by the centre-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) with 25.4 of the votes, far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP) with 11.9 percent and the pro-Kurdish left-wing Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) with 10.7 percent.
Immigration is a key area because Turkey is the source of hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees, a lot of them from Syria, streaming into the EU.
Although Prime Minister Ahmet Davuto?lu’s victory speech was conciliatory and spoke of the AKP governing for all Turks, the country is still starkly divided between those who favor a western secular style of government on one hand and a more socially conservative and Islamist style of government on the other.
Although it regained its parliamentary majority in Sunday’s election, AKP appears to be 13 seats short of the number (330) needed to push through a referendum on constitutional reform. Add to this the deadly twin suicide bombings in Ankara – blamed on terrorists linked to the Islamic State – that killed 102 people last month, and AKP spread the word that only it could ensure stability in Turkey – which may have contributed to its victory. Turnout was almost 87 per cent among the 54 million people eligible to vote. Closed list indicates that it is the sole discretion of the political party to whom it may seat in the Parliament on the basis of seats won by it. But tensions with Turkey’s large Kurdish minority have escalated as the deaths of Kurdish rebels fighting the government have mounted.
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HDP leaders attributed the fall in their votes to the violence and unfair election conditions. “My wish is that a great hope for peace and calm emerges (from the vote)”. It has already been reported that 35 of Erdogan’s political rivals have been arrested.
