EON

Ankara – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared to have easily won re-election with his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) winning almost 48 per cent of the vote, a result that will allow them to comfortably form a single-party government.

With just over 70 per cent of the vote counted, the AKP vote nationwide stood at 47.6 per cent, ahead of the staunchly secular Republican People’s Party (CHP) on 19.9 per cent and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party coming in third on 14.7 per cent of the vote.

No other party looked close to passing the 10 per cent of the vote needed to be represented in parliament although a number of pro- Kurdish independents looked set to be elected.

According to the NTV private television station such a result would see the AKP winning 345 seats in the 550-seat parliament. The CHP would form the main opposition party with 109 seats and the MHP would hold 73 seats.

Although such a result would be a major victory with the AKP increasing its vote compared to the 2002 election by some 14 per cent, the fact that three parties have passed the threshold will result in the AKP winning 18 less seats than it did in 2002.

Erdogan will now be forced to recruit allies in order to find the 367 votes needed to elect a new president or perhaps will be forced to find a compromise candidate acceptable to all sides. If the new parliament fails to elect a president to replace the staunch secularist Ahmet Necdet Sezer new elections must be called.

It was Erdogan’s failure to find that two-thirds majority of parliament in order to have his right-hand man, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, elected to the presidency that forced the calling of early elections.

Erdogan’s AKP campaigned on its strong economic record since first winning power in 2002 but the election will be seen as a victory over not just the opposition but also the Turkish military which has clashed with the government on a number of occasions over the AKP’s Islamist tendancies.

Millions of people urged on by the retired generals took to the streets in April and June to protest the prospect of against the AKP and Gul becoming president.

They objected to Gul’s past involvement in conservative Islamist groups, the fact that his wife wears an Islamic-style headscarf – no president’s wife in Turkey has ever worn one – and also at the prospect of the AKP controlling the government, the parliament and presidency.

The military then stepped in in April effectively scuttling the presidential election process by declaring it would do whatever necessary to protect secularism.

Despite winning a clear majority Erdogan will now be forced to recruit allies in order to find the 367 votes needed to elect a new president or perhaps he will be forced to find a compromise candidate acceptable to all sides.