Turkey’s AKP party loses majority in blow for Erdogan

Istanbul: Turkey´s ruling party lost its absolute parliamentary majority in legislative elections on Sunday, dealing a severe blow to strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan´s ambition to expand his powers.

The Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the most important share of the choose the elections, however well down on the just about fifty p.c it recorded within the previous 2011 polls.

In a sensational result that shakes-up Turkey´s political landscape, the pro-Kurdish People´s party (HDP) simply surpassed the ten p.c barrier required to send MPs to parliament.

Under Turkey´s representation system, this implies the AKP can ought to kind a coalition for initial|the primary} time since it first came to power in 2002.

The AKP secured forty one p.c of the vote, followed by the Republican People´s Party (CHP) on twenty five p.c, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) on sixteen.5 and therefore the pro-Kurdish People´s party (HDP) fourth on twelve.5 percent, aforesaid official results supported a ninety eight p.c vote count.

Turnout was eighty six p.c.

According to the official seat projection, the AKP can have 259 seats within the 550-seat parliament, the CHP 131, the MHP eighty two and therefore the HDP seventy eight.

The AKP has dominated Turkish politics since it initial came to power in 2002 however has suffered from a dip in economic process and disputation over Erdogan´s perceived authoritarian tendencies.

The results wreck Erdogan´s dream of agreeing a replacement constitution to modify Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential system that he had created a basic issue within the campaign.

Such a amendment would have needed a simple fraction majority within the parliament.

"Turkish voters have aforesaid clearly that they are doing not approve of the move to a presidential system," analyst Seyfettin Gursel of Bahcesehir University aforesaid on CNN-Turk tv.

Erdogan
 premier from 2003-2014 before changing into president -- wished to be enshrined as Turkey´s most powerful figure and strengthen the workplace of the presidency that was for the most part ceremonial till his arrival.

Opponents, however, feared it might mark the beginning of autarchy, with Erdogan seemingly to hunt another presidential mandate to remain in power till 2024.