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Turkey, Roiled by War and Insecurity, Votes Again for a New Parliament
Erdogan’s Party in Turkey Seems Poised to Regain Parliamentary Majority
(about 3 hours later)
ISTANBUL — For the second time in less than six months, Turks on Sunday voted for a new Parliament in an election likely to harden deep divisions in a country facing challenges on many fronts, from a war with Kurdish militants to security threats from the Islamic State and an ongoing refugee crisis from the civil war in Syria.
ISTANBUL — The Islamist party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday seemed poised to regain its majority in Parliament in a snap election, according to preliminary results published by TRT, the state broadcaster.
The election in June resulted, for the first time, in the Islamist party of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan being stripped of its majority in Parliament, mostly because of a historic performance at the ballot box by a Kurdish-dominated party. After weeks of fruitless coalition talks between Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., which was still the largest vote-getter with nearly 41 percent, and opposition parties, a snap election was called.
If the results hold, it would represent a stunning electoral comeback, and ensure another period of single-party government in Turkey and the continued political dominance of Mr. Erdogan.
Most polls, as well as expert opinions and interviews with voters, indicate that the result of Sunday’s vote is likely to be similar to that in June, with no party winning a majority. That would lead to more contentious talks over a coalition, and the question overshadowing the proceedings would be whether Mr. Erdogan, who critics say has turned ever more authoritarian in his bid to run the country from the largely ceremonial post of the presidency, would accede to a coalition — or push for yet another election down the road.
With 92 percent of the votes counted, according to TRT, Mr. Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., garnered 49.6 percent of the vote, which would give it a majority of the seats in Parliament based on the system of apportionment. This represents a sharp increase from the roughly 41 percent the party received in June’s national election, which for the first time in more than a decade had denied the A.K.P. a parliamentary majority. After failed coalition talks in the wake of that vote, Mr. Erdogan called for a new election.
“A lot will depend on the actual election arithmetic,” said Naz Masraff, a Turkey analyst at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. “If the A.K.P. misses a majority with a close margin, the risk of another snap election increases. The party could also try to secure support of deputies from other parties to secure a narrow majority. With a weaker performance, however, the A.K.P. is more likely to build a coalition government.”
That Turkish voters appeared to deliver his party a majority all but guaranteed that Mr. Erdogan, whose term as president expires in 2019, will be able to maintain his position as the country’s pre-eminent political figure while pushing the boundaries of the constitutional limits of the presidency, a largely ceremonial position.
Even if the A.K.P. ekes out a narrow majority and is able to form a government on its own, a sense of instability and acrimony — highlighted recently by the country’s inability to unite in the face of a terrorist attack in Ankara in early October that killed more than 100 people — is unlikely to dissipate.
The outcome would represent a significant victory for Mr. Erdogan, whose party has now won four national elections, beginning in 2002, and a spectacular upset given that most polls had predicted a result similar to June’s national election.
Mr. Erdogan and his party have governed Turkey now for more than a decade, and in the 2011 elections they captured nearly 50 percent of the vote. But after the election in June, which saw nearly 60 percent of the country vote for opposition parties, a majority of Turks are now determined to see the curtain close on the era of single-party A.K.P. rule. Mr. Erdogan has become increasingly aggressive, particularly in his silencing of dissent and in his determination to renew a war with Kurdish militants that critics said is a gambit to win nationalist votes.
The results so far appear to validate Mr. Erdogan’s electoral strategy of turning more nationalist, and taking a harder line with Kurdish militants in the southeast, where a long-running war resumed in recent months, and then making a case to the electorate that only an A.K.P. victory could guarantee stability.
But even as Turkey has faced domestic turmoil, raising concerns in the West about the erosion of democratic institutions, like the news media and judiciary, the country has become even more vital to nominal allies like the United States and Europe on issues like the fight against the Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL, and the migrant crisis convulsing Europe.
On these matters, there has been only faltering progress. Turkey has allowed the American-led coalition to use its air bases to bomb the Islamic State in Syria, but it has seemed more intent on fighting Kurdish militants than on wholeheartedly joining the fight against the militant group. Leaders of the European Union have sought Turkey’s help in containing the flow of migrants from its shores, but Turkey has sought visa-free travel to Europe for its own citizens as a condition of more cooperation.
What seems clear, according to polls, is that the Kurdish-dominated People’s Democratic Party, known as H.D.P., will once again get the 10 percent of the vote needed to enter Parliament. The party’s performance in June was the main reason the A.K.P. lost its parliamentary majority, which had seemed to end, at least briefly, Mr. Erdogan’s ambition of securing enough seats to establish an executive presidency.
Even so, many Kurds were wary of another election, and blamed the government for the collapse of a peace process with the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which has brought renewed violence in recent months to the Kurdish southeast region. The government also cracked down on the civilian side of the Kurdish movement, with mass arrests and an attempt to tarnish the H.D.P. as being complicit in P.K.K. terrorism.
“I don’t feel like voting,” said Ozge, 44, a Kurd who works as a pharmacist in Istanbul and gave only his first name. “What’s the use? When the Kurds entered Parliament we hoped for a political solution, but so much blood has been shed since.”
Despite the growing numbers of those who oppose him, Mr. Erdogan is still the most popular politician in Turkey and his party will still, by far, have the largest representation in Parliament.
This time around, the A.K.P. has campaigned with one dominant message: that as the country has slipped into chaos, the only way back to stability is a single-party A.K.P. government.
“The Turkish people made a mistake in the last vote,” said Serpil, 29, a graduate student who spoke during a recent A.K.P. rally in Istanbul and gave only her first name. “When Erdogan isn’t in power, this country gets dragged into complete chaos.”
Mr. Erdogan, who has been noticeably more subdued in this campaign, said in Ankara on Thursday, “Turkey has no time to lose. Sunday is a breaking point for our country. If our people give a single party a chance, then stability will continue.”
