IRIA News

With 99 percent of votes counted, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party has lost its majority, as for the first time in the republic’s history a pro-Kurdish party is in parliament

Turkey Elections 2015: Key Points

• In debut run, pro-Kurdish party gets 80 out of 550 seats.
• Turkey’s AK party faces a challenge to form a government after losing its majority at a general election for the first time in 13 years.
• It secured 41%, a sharp drop from 2011, and must form a coalition or face entering a minority government.
• The pro-Kurdish HDP crossed the 10% threshold, securing seats in parliament for the first time.
• The Turkish lira and shares dropped sharply on Monday morning as markets reacted to the news.
• The Turkish currency fell to near-record lows against the dollar, and shares dropped by more than 8% soon after the Istanbul stock exchange opened.

Turkey’s ruling party face challenge to form Coalition Government

The results represented a significant setback for Mr. Erdogan, an Islamist who has steadily increased his power since being elected last year as president, a partly but not solely ceremonial post. The prime minister for more than a decade before that, Mr. Erdogan has pushed for more control of the judiciary and cracked down on any form of criticism, including prosecuting those who insult him on social media, but his efforts appeared to have run aground on Sunday.

The vote was also a significant victory to the cadre of Kurds, liberals and secular Turks who found their voice of opposition to Mr. Erdogan during sweeping antigovernment protests two years ago. For the first time, the Kurdish slate crossed a 10 percent threshold required to enter Parliament.

The vote turned on the historic performance at the ballot box of Turkey’s Kurdish minority, which aligned with liberals and secular Turks opposed to Mr. Erdogan’s leadership to win almost 13 percent of the vote, passing the legal threshold for earning representation in Parliament.

Selahattin Demirtas, 42, a former human rights lawyer who leads the largely Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, told reporters Sunday night: “As of this hour, the debate about the presidency, the debate about dictatorship, is over. Turkey narrowly averted a disaster.”

Turkey’s AKP loses majority, HDP passes 10 pct

Turkey witnessed dramatic changes in its political landscape on June 7 after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its parliamentary majority and the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) crossed the notorious 10 percent threshold needed to enter parliament as a party.

The blow to the AKP, as well as to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s hopes of assuming greater powers through the implementation of a presidential system, came amid the HDP’s success in become the first-ever party focusing on the Kurdish issue to win 10 percent of the vote.

With around 12 percent of the vote, the HDP is likely to take around 80 of parliament’s 550 seats.

Because of Turkey’s electoral system, the HDP’s failure to receive 10 percent would have handed the AKP the two-thirds parliamentary majority it needs to transform the country into a presidential system under Erdoğan.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan poses for a selfie with a woman after voting at a polling station in Istanbul Photo: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Jubilation in Turkey pro-Kurdish party’s surprise win and entrance in Parliament

The election result also marks a major setback for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had hoped for a crushing victory for the AK Party he founded, allowing it to change the constitution and give him broad executive powers.

Erdogan had repeatedly lashed out at the HDP and its charismatic leader Selahattin Demirtas before the elections.

The crowds brought traffic to a standstill in parts of the city, the largest in Turkey’s southeast. Elsewhere, young people drove through sidestreets hanging out of car windows and waving HDP flags. Men fired pistols into the air, a traditional sign of celebration.

Just two days earlier, bombs tore through a HDP rally in Diyarbakir, killing two and wounding at least 200.

The HDP had looked to reach beyond Turkey’s roughly 20 percent Kurdish population, attempting to woo center-left and secular voters disillusioned with Erdogan.

“The reason the HDP has won this many votes is because it has not excluded any members of this country, unlike our current rulers,” said 25-year-old Siar Senci. “It has embraced all languages, all ethnicities and members of all faiths and promised them freedom.”

The HDP’s entrance into parliament as a party – previously candidates ran as independents to skirt the 10 percent threshold – could also herald a step forward for the Kurdish peace process.

Selahattin Demirtas, right, co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) at a polling station in Istanbul. Photo: AFP

The pro-Kurdish HDP party, which won 80 seats have repeated its unwillingness to do a deal with Erodogan’s party. Its leader Selahattin Demirtas, said:

“We have promised our people that we would not form an internal or external coalition with the AKP. We are clear on that.”

More significantly the nationalist MHP is also in an uncooperative move.

Erdogan calls for stability amid political uncertainty

Erdogan has broken his silence after the result by urging all parties to be “careful to preserve the environment of confidence and stability”.

In a statement he said he believed all parties would make a “healthy and realistic” evaluation of the results.

Erdogan also accepted that the result did not give any party a mandate for single party government. He said the high turnout was an indication of “Turkey’s determination on Democracy”.

Erdogan said on Monday no party had won a mandate to govern alone in a parliamentary election and urged all political parties to work towards preserving an environment of confidence and stability in the country.

“Our nation’s opinion is above everything else,” Erdogan said in a statement released by his office, his first public comments on Sunday’s vote.

“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.”