On June 7, Turkish citizens went to the polls to elect their 24th Grand National Assembly (or Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi). The chosen members of Turkey’s unicameral parliamentary body will be in office for the next years.
Last year, on August 10, Turkey held its first ever popular presidential election, in which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a majority of the vote in the first round. However, during the recent parliamentary polls, the President’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has governed the country since 2002, lost its current majority and is expected to get (when final results are made official) only about 270 of the 550 legislative seats.
One of the main issues for the ruling party and President Erdogan is that loosing a majority in the National Assembly buries their controversial project to reform the Constitution.
According to media reports, Turkey’s President Erdogan has said that the inconclusive election result means no party can govern alone. AKP is trying to form a coalition government after losing its majority for the first time in 13 years. “I believe the results, which do not give the opportunity to any party to form a single-party government, will be assessed healthily and realistically by every party,” Erdogan said.
On the other hand, the three opposition parties: the social democratic CHP, the nationalist MHP party and the leftist pro-Kurdish HDP party, have made significant gains in Turkey. Yet, the left-wind HDP has ruled out a coalition with AKP, the ruling party.
Voter turnout was extremely high and may have surpassed the 89% registered in the March 2014 local elections. Even though voting is compulsory in Turkey, the fines for non-voters are rarely enforced. The total number of registered in-country voters was 53,741,883, while there were 2,866,940 voters registered for out-of-country voting.
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