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Turkey election 2015: ruling party loses majority as pro-Kurdish HDP gains
From the UK Guardian
With 99.9% of votes counted here are the latest election results:
- 41% Justice and Development Party (AKP)]/li]
- 25% Republican People’s Party (CHP)
- 16.5% Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)
- 13% Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP)
Voting turnout stood at 86%.
Ruling party AKP may have the biggest share of the vote, but the results represent a significant drop on the 49% it recorded in the previous 2011 polls.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been president of Turkey since last August, following a triple term as prime minister, which means he was not on the ballot. Yet he was often considered the face of AKP throughout their campaign.
Our reporter Constanze Letsch in Istanbul said the election remained “a referendum on whether to endow his office with extraordinary powers that would significantly change Turkish democracy and prolong his reign as the country’s most powerful politician”.
With the election results pointing at a significant portion of the country disapproving of such a proposal, the party will have to make some tough decisions.
