Turkey’s Ruling Party Appears to Lose Parliamentary Majority, Early Results Show/NYT

Yay!! Bravo to the HDP!

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/08/world/europe/turkey-election-recep-tayyip-erdogan-kurds-hdp.html?_r=0

ISTANBUL — Partial results in Turkey’s parliamentary election Sunday showed that the ruling Justice and Development Party stood to lose its single-party majority in Parliament after 12 years of being in power, according to TRT, a state-run broadcaster.

With over 90 percent of the votes counted, the A.K.P. has 41 percent of the vote, a result that is likely to deny the party enough seats to form the next government by itself and realize President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions of changing the Constitution to establish an executive presidency.

The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, or H.D.P., appears to be on track to surpass the 10 percent threshold needed to secure representation in Parliament for the first time.

Sirri Sureyya Onder, a party deputy, said the H.D.P. expects to win 80 seats in Parliament. “This is the victory of peace against war,” he said, speaking to a group of reporters after preliminary results were published.