The People's Alliance, formed between the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) clinched victory in Turkey's 27th general elections Sunday by receiving 53.6 percent of the votes.
Eight political parties in total raced yesterday with the aim of getting seats in the Parliament: The AK Party, Republican People's Party (CHP), People's Democratic Party (HDP), Free Cause Party (HÜDA-PAR), Good Party (İP), MHP, Felicity Party (SP) and the Motherland Party (VP).
For the first time in Turkish history, however, political parties went to elections by forming alliances. The AK Party and the MHP formed the People's Alliance, while the CHP, İP, and the SP formed the Nation Alliance.
As a result of the elections, AK Party had 42.4 percent of the votes, losing the majority in the parliament. The MHP received 11.2 percent of the vote, pushing the People's Alliance to 53.6 percent.
The Nation Alliance, however, managed to receive 33.1 percent of the votes. CHP had 22.8 percent of the votes by itself, while its allies İP and SP took 10.2 and 2.1 percent, respectively. HDP, on the other hand, received 11.4 percent of the votes.
In the previous parliamentary elections which were held on November 1, 2015, AK Party had received 49.5 percent of the votes and formed the government with 317 of the 550 seats in Parliament. AK Party was followed by the CHP, which gained 25.31 percent of the votes. MHP had 11.9 percent while the HDP got 10.76 percent of the votes.
Previously, in the general elections, a political party was required to garner 10 percent of the votes nationwide for its candidate to win a seat in Parliament. Now, with the new changes in electoral laws, alliances which passed the 10 percent threshold let the parties in the alliance claim seats in Parliament.
According to these results, the People's Alliance received 348 parliamentarian seats, of which 298 are AK Party deputies. The Nation Alliance, however, got 188 parliamentarian seats. With 144 seats going to the CHP while 65 of the seats are of the İP.
According to the changes adopted in the April 16, 2017 constitutional reform and presidential system referendum, the number of deputies in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey have increased from 550 to 600.
The constitutional reform also lowered the age of candidacy from 25 to 18, which enabled 113 young candidates to run for the parliament yesterday.
In 25 of the 30 largest provinces of Turkey, the People's Alliance became the leading alliance while in the others, the Nation Alliance prevailed. Most of the provinces that the People's Alliance became victorious in are located in the northern, central and southern parts of the country. The MHP increased its vote percentage in 45 provinces across the country.
The western Aegean and Thrace regions were the regions that supported the Nation Alliance the most. The HDP, however, is supported mainly in the southeastern provinces of the country, which are known for their large Kurdish population.
This situation was quite similar during the November 2015 elections as well. The central, southern and northern Anatolian provinces mostly supported the AK Party, while the western provinces were highly supportive of the CHP in general. The eastern provinces, however, were divided between the AK Party and HDP in terms of political outcomes while southeastern Turkey mostly supported the HDP.
In the November 2015 elections, there were a total of 54 million voters, 50.7 percent of whom were women. The participation rate in those elections was 85.18 percent, meaning that 48.5 million out of 56.9 million voters went to the polls. Yesterday, however, there were 59,354,840 electorates with a participation rate of 73.25 percent.
Some 1,585,000 voters went for the polls for the first time. In November 2015, this number was 1,339,000.
Some 1.49 million expats voted in a 13-day period between June 7 and June 19 at 123 Turkish missions abroad.
