Overwhelming victory of Erdogan’s party in the parliamentary elections in Turkey

Written by Sandeep Nehra

The party emerged from the Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a landslide victory in Sunday’s parliamentary Turkey, ensuring a third consecutive term, after the counting of nearly all ballots.

After counting 99% of the votes, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Erdogan, in power since 2002, won 50% of the vote, according to the TV.

This party will be able to form a government only because it has largely absolute majority of 550 seats in parliament with 326 deputies.

This party won 47% of the vote in 2007 parliamentary and won 341 seats in Parliament. In 2002, his score was 34%.

“Today once again democracy, national will have won,” shouted Mr. Erdogan, accompanied by his wife Emine, from the balcony of his party headquarters in Ankara to address a crowd of several Thousands of people waving the flags of the AKP.

Erdogan, a former Islamist activist, also said that with the victory of the AKP, “Gaza, Palestine and Jerusalem were also won,” showing once again his sympathy for the Muslim world, especially because PA.

This time, even if the AKP does not show signs of slowing down and increases its vote share to a record, it will have fewer members, because of the Turkish electoral system, namely the proportional, according to the results.

The head of AKP party accused the media of wanting to lay Islamization of Turkish society in secret, has also assured that it “was the guarantor of all different lifestyles and beliefs” in Turkey.

After the AKP came second the Republican People’s Party (CHP, social-democrat), main opposition with 25.9% of the vote, followed by the nationalist MHP with 13%.

Over 50 million voters out of a population of 73 million people were eligible to vote.

The AKP did not, however a majority of two thirds (367) that she hoped Parliament to amend, without consulting the opposition, the Constitution inherited from the military after the coup of 1980.

It is even below the 330 members needed to submit to referendum any amendment of the Basic Law.

But Mr Erdogan has pledged Sunday he would seek “the broadest consensus” with the opposition and civil society, Turkish for “draft a new liberal constitution worthy of Turkey.”

And to promise that the new text would be based on democratic and pluralistic, engaging also in finding a solution to the Kurdish conflict.

His critics have denounced his autocratic tendencies and lend him the ambition to rise later as head of state, under a presidential regime.

The opposition alleges violations of civil liberties, especially with the arrests of journalists, and the merits of the trial for conspiracy against the regime.

“The government will face a more powerful HPC Assembly (…) We will closely monitor developments regarding freedoms,” said the leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kiliçdaroglu.

Independent candidates presented by the main pro-Kurdish deputies get thirty.

The Prime Minister praised the campaign for the economic health of Turkey, currently 17th world economy with a growth of 8.9% in 2010.

Torn by unstable coalitions, the country has stabilized politically and economically, under the leadership of the AKP, which has also managed to confine to barracks the army, formerly a leading political player.

But the prospect of joining the European Union is in limbo.

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