Confortable victory for Erdogan

Recep Tayyp Erdogan is the “master of the ballot box,” headlines Turkish daily Radikal, following the victory of the Party for Justice and Development (AKP) in the June 12 legislative elections. Reaping nearly 50% of the vote and 326 seats out of 550, the Prime Minister’s conservative, Islamist party takes the legislative lead for the third election running, after 2002 and 2007. It is the sixth win for the party if the local elections of 2004 and 2009 are included, as well as the September 2010 referendum. With five million supplementary votes but fewer seats in parliament, the AKP will, as it has done in the past, be able to form a government alone. But it will have to deal with the other parties to formulate the new Constitution promised by Erdogan following the ballot. In his first post-electoral speech, the Prime Minister promised “to consult the opposition, civil society and the media” to find a consensus around this reform, of which one of the issues will be to redefine the country’s national identity by taking into account the demands of the Kurds. In fact, as leader writer, Oral Çalişlar notes, the independent bloc, grouped around the pro-Kurd Party for Peace and Democracy (BDP), is the second place winner of the ballot, raising its number of seats to 36 from 22. As for the main opposition party, the People’s Republican Party (CHP), it made a 5% gain in votes to 135 seats but it still doesn’t measure up to the AKP.