Why Erdoğan lost simple majority in Turkish elections?
Mentoring Desk: A number of political reasons are responsible for historic results of Turkish Parliamentary elections where ruling AK Party of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lost simple majority. Reasons include the decision of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to accommodate over 2 million Syrian refugees in his country and his policy towards Syrian crises, reports Dispatch News Desk news agency.
News agency also reported that the Turkish currency (lira) crashed when it observed its worst daily loss in nearly 7 years, after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK party lost its stranglehold on parliament.
Currency investors foresee instability ahead: Since Sunday’s result the lira has dropped 4.4 per cent to a record low of 2.776 per dollar. If sustained this would be its worst daily loss since November 2008.
Weak opposition had been claiming Erdogan support for extremists organisations including Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Syrian war but Erdogan had been denying these allegations.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has lost ground from his feet as his party has faced electoral defeat on Sunday. Ruling Justice and Development, or AK, party lost its parliamentary majority and it has to find a coalition partner in order to form a government.
According to polls results, the AKP secured 41% of the vote though it needed over 49% for simple majority while Republican People’s party (CHP) gained its position at 25%. The Nationalist Movement party (MHP) got 16.5% and the pro-Kurdish leftist Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) gave a surprise to everybody by gaining 12.5%. Results show that stiff position on Syria war and alleged support to radical Islamist inside Syria played a massive role to dip popularity of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
“His failure to win an overall majority marks an end to 12 years of uninterrupted, stable single-party rule since it first took power in 2002”, Turkish media reported after 99% results were gathered.
The liberal and leftist HDP gained a lot due to radical position of Erdoğan, over opening Turkish borders for people to enter Syria to wage war against Syrian government and to join Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Turkey is known as base camp for youth to enter Syria and join ISIS.
“The results suggest voters have rejected the ruling party’s attempt to remake the constitution and give more power to Erdoğan, for which it would have needed a two-thirds majority in parliament – or 367 seats. Instead, the AKP appears to have won 258 seats – falling short of the 276 seats required to form a majority government”, reports international news agency.
The party’s projected share of the vote, at around 41%, is below the 49% it received in the parliamentary elections in 2011.
It is the first time the HDP has run as a party in Turkish elections, and is not sending independent candidates into the race, for whom the election threshold does not apply.
Thousands of jubilant Kurds flooded the streets of Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Sunday as the results came in. Erdoğan had repeatedly lashed out at the HDP and its charismatic co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş before the elections.
