Turkey's Ruling Party Wins Parliamentary Polls but Loses Majority
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) won Turkey's parliamentary polls, but lost its single-party government, according to the preliminary results.
The country's pro-Kurdish left-wing Peoples' Democracy Party (HDP) crossed the country's unusually high 10 percent electoral threshold that affected the distribution of seats and, consequently, the power of the ruling party.
Official results based on 99.9 percent of votes counted gave the AK Party got 41 percent of Sunday's votes, while the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) scored 25 percent.
The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) secured 16.5 percent of the votes, while the HDP won 13 percent, Al Jazeera reported.
About 54 million citizens were eligible to vote in the polls, with 86 percent of attendance rate, according to Turkey's semi-official Anatolia news agency.
According to the official projections, the AK Party is set to secure 258 MPs, below the 276 seats necessary to form a single-party government in the 550-seat parliament. The CHP, MHP and HDP are projected to secure 132, 81 and 79 seats respectively.
The AK Party, which currently has 311 seats in parliament, has ruled the country with a single-majority government for the last 13 years.
"Our nation’s decision is final. Respecting this is a responsibility for all political parties," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in a public address from AK Party headquarters in Ankara.
"For long marches, 13 years is a short time. There is much more to do. Our blessed march is to continue … We will evaluate the messages to get from the polls and we will continue walking in our way with further determination," he said.
"Turkey’s democracy proved itself. The ones who tried to stain our democracy are ashamed now."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Davutoglu had campaigned to write a new constitution to bolster the powers of the country's presidential office. The AK Party needed at least 330 seats to individually initiate such a change and take it to a referendum. All the other three main parties are against a presidential system.
The HDP, which was contesting the elections on a liberal platform, was seeking to cross the country's electoral threshold to make its way to the parliament. The party had independent candidates in the last two polls that significantly decreased the number of the MPs it won through Turkey's electoral system.