Ruling party wins third term in Turkish Parliament

Istanbul - 13 June 2011: Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) sailed to a clear victory with 50 per cent of the vote in elections Sunday, guaranteeing it a third consecutive term to govern.

"It is Turkey that has won the June 12 election. Today, freedom, peace, justice and stability, as much as democracy, have won," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan proclaimed from the balcony of his party's offices in Ankara to a cheering crowd of supporters.

The 325 seats projected for the conservative, mildly Islamist AKP fell short of the 330 out of 550 it would have needed to draft a new constitution without the consent of other parties.

The AKP had hoped to write a new constitution to replace the existing document, drafted by the military in 1982, and have it approved in a popular referendum, as his government did with a package of constitutional amendments in 2010.

Mr. Erdogan repeated a promise he made before the election to work with other parties and groups in drafting a new constitution.

"The nation has given us not only the authority to govern but has entrusted us with the task of making a new constitution," he said. "I state that we will seek compromise in the broadest way with parties outside Parliament, with civil society groups, the media and academicians." Though the AKP, which was first elected in 2002, did not secure its targeted number of seats, its 50 per cent vote share was nonetheless an increase from the 47 per cent it got in the 2007 election, indicating far higher satisfaction with the party than its rivals.

The secular Republican People's Party (CHP), the main opposition party, trailed the AKP with just under 26 per cent - an improvement on its 21 per cent showing in 2007 but lower than it had hoped for.

Despite being beset by a spate of sex scandals in the months before the election, the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) won 13 per cent of the vote.

Opinion polls before the election had projected that the MHP might only barely pass the 10 per cent threshold for parties to enter Parliament.

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), largely supported by voters in the country's primarily Kurdish south-east, got nearly 6 per cent of the vote.

By fielding candidates as independents in order to get around the electoral hurdle, the BDP was projected to net 36 seats in Parliament, well above the 20 it needs to form a parliamentary group.

Because fewer voters cast ballots for small parties that didn't make it past the electoral threshold, and due to a higher number of independent candidates elected, the AKP's proportion of seats decreased from 341 in the last term, though its vote share went up.

Turnout among Turkey's 52 million registered voters was about 86 per cent, based on 99.8 per cent of votes counted, a tick higher than in the last parliamentary election.

The AKP transformed the country over its first two terms in office, ushering in a period of significant economic growth as well as political and social reforms that enabled Turkey to become a candidate for European Union membership.

The government also sought to appeal to Turkey's Kurdish minority by taking steps to grant the ethnic group greater cultural and political autonomy. But the Kurdish initiative appeared to stall due to an apparent lack of political will, leading some previously pro-AKP Kurds to switch their support to the BDP.

The new Parliament will have the highest-ever number of female deputies at 74 - up from 50 in the last term - as well as the first Assyrian Christian representative, Erol Dora from the south-eastern province of Mardin, who was elected as an independent supporting the BDP.

source: DPA