With most of the votes counted by yestreday late night here’s a summary of the election and its aftermath.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, tightened his grip on power decisively as his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) swept back to single-party government with a convincing win in national elections. With more than 95% of the votes counted, the party won almost 50% of the vote. That would give it about 325 seats in the 550-seat parliament, comfortably ahead of its three main rival parties and easily enough to form a government on its own.
The Leftist pro-Kurdish HDP surpassed the 10% threshold necessary to win seats in the new Parliament. But its support dipped from the 13% it secured in June’s elections to just over 10%.
Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon at activists in the Kurdish stronghold city of Diyarbakir. The AKP could improve their vote count in Diyarbakir and increase the numbers of local delegates to two.
The vote of the main opposition Republican People’s party (CHP) secured about the same as it did in June with about 25% of the vote and around 134 seats. Support for the nationalist MHP fell sharply with only 12% and about 40 seats compared to 80 in June’s election.
