ISTANBUL - The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan swept to a surprise victory in Sunday's snap parliamentary polls, returning the country to single-party rule just five months after it lost its majority for the first time in more than a decade.
With almost all ballots tallied early Monday, the AKP was shown holding just under 50 percent of the vote and projected to win at least 316 seats in the 550-member parliament - a far wider margin of victory than predicted. Preliminary results showed the main opposition CHP party on track to win just over 25 percent.
Another opposition party – the MHP - and the pro-Kurdish HDP also earned seats in the assembly.
Erdogan called the new elections in June after the AKP lost its majority and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu failed to form a governing coalition.
Hours after polls closed Sunday, Erdogan described the outcome as a vote for stability and trust. He also called it a message to Kurdish insurgents in Turkey's southeast that "violence cannot coexist with democracy."
Separately, the prime minister described Sunday as "a day of victory.” “But it is also a day for humility," he said as he addressed supporters in his hometown of Konya.
Sunday's vote followed months of rising tensions between the Erdogan government and a loose alliance of pro-Kurdish leftists, feminists and nationalist Kurds. The opposition's indirect links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) came under repeated attack from Erdogan and his allies during the run-up to Sunday's balloting.
Opinion surveys the day before the vote suggested that Sunday’s election would likely repeat June’s inconclusive result in which no party secured an outright majority, partly thanks to a strong performance by the liberal pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
As they cast their ballots, voters said they were in no doubt about the critical importance of the polls, with some in the Fatih district of Istanbul voicing anxiety about increased civil conflict depending on the result.
Worries focused on no party being able to form a government, although many voters expressed deep concern about Erdogan securing a win, arguing that Turkey with all its divisions needs politicians to cooperate and not fight each other.
“I expect we will get the same result as in June and if the parties don’t cooperate and arrange a coalition government, then I really don’t know what will happen,” said 32-year-old Duydu, an environmental engineer, as she voted Sunday morning at a polling station at the Samiha Ayverdi Anadolu Lisesi, a four-story schoolhouse. “We have a lot of problems and the parties need to work together.”
In the election on June 7, the AKP got 258 deputies with a 41 percent share of the vote. It needed an additional 18 deputies to secure single-party rule once again.
Commentator Mustafa Akyol tweeted as the votes were being counted, and it became clear the AKP was heading for a shock win: “People worried about instability.” He argued also that the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which saw its vote fall over dramatically had suffered from “dullness,” which “helped the AKP a lot.”
In June, the MHP won 16.3 percent of the vote but with three-quarters of Sunday’s vote counted its share had collapsed to 11.6 percent. It wasn’t alone in suffering: the AKP attracted back enough Kurdish voters to depress the vote of the HDP, which appeared to have seen its support drop to about 10 percent from just over 13 percent in June.
Some analysts said the HDP likely suffered from the renewed hostilities between Kurdish separatist and Turkish authorities.
Voters turned out early in Istanbul to vote in one of the most significant elections in Turkey’s history.
The poll has been backdropped by rising political violence, jihadist bombings, renewed hostilities between Kurdish separatists and Turkish authorities, an influx of refugees from neighboring Syria and a plunging economy.
One of the first politicians to vote was the liberal pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) leader Selahattin Demirta?, who cast his ballot in the working class district of Sultanbeyli in Istanbul.
“I hope the political results will be the most beneficial for all of us,” he told reporters.
“All of the country desires comfort and peace most. It was a tough and troubled campaign period. Unfortunately we also have lost lives,” Demirta? said in reference to the October 10 Ankara bombing of a peace rally that left 102 people dead. He urged all Turks to vote.
Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can to view it offline.