The Islamist party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, AKP, on Sunday regained its majority in Parliament in the snap election that represented a stunning comeback, and ensured another period of single party government in Turkey.
More than 40 million Turks headed to the polls and the ruling Justice and Development Party led the polls with a landslide 49-percent majority, according to unofficial results from the vote.
With 95 percent of the votes counted, the AK Party won 49 percent of the votes while the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) secured 25.85 percent. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) lost 25 percent of its votes as compared to the results of June 7 election, winning 12 percent. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) won 10.45 percent, just above the 10-percent threshold to enter Parliament.
The results mean that the AK Party has won back its parliamentary majority and will be able to form a single-party government again after losing its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002 in the June 7 election.
The margin of victory was not enough to secure Erdogan’s ambition of establishing an executive presidency, but the result guarantees that he will be able to maintain his position as the country’s pre-eminent political figure while pushing the boundaries of the constitutional limits of the presidency, a largely ceremonial position.
With more than 95 percent of the votes counted the Justice and Development Party, AKP, got 49,4 percent of the popular vote, which would give the party a solid majority of 316 seats in Parliament.
The outcome is a victory for Erdogan, whose party has now won four national elections, beginning in 2002.
