Israel’s Steinitz: Turkish President Erdogan’s AKP Party Victory ‘Unfortunate’

The party regained four deputies from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), 18 deputies from the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and 37 deputies from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

A victorious Erdogan said Monday that Turks had voted for stability and unity and called on the entire world to respect the result. In response to the victory, the nation’s stock index gained 5.0 percent, and the Turkish lira jumped 3.6 percent. Closed list indicates that it is the sole discretion of the political party to whom it may seat in the Parliament on the basis of seats won by it.

Erdogan has been warning of instability if a coalition government is formed but also says he will adhere to voters’ wishes. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) took 49.4 per cent of the vote, a solid majority of 316 seats in the 550-member parliament. “Now a party with a few 50 % in Turkey has attained power…”

The elections were also held against a backdrop of a military campaign against Kurdish rebels in the southeast of Turkey and in northern Iraq after attacks on security forces by the militants.

If the HDP had not passed the threshold, the AKP, as the strongest party, would have received its forfeited votes and gained not only its existing majority but the 367-seat supermajority needed to pass constitutional changes without referendum.

Turkey then suffered its deadliest attack in its modern history when more than 100 people were killed as they headed for a peace rally in Ankara.

The German government which has been accused of carrying out a U-turn over its decision to back Turkey’s European Union membership after blocking it for the past ten years has welcomed the election win for the ruling AKP party.

Erdogan had been credited with negotiating a peace process with the PKK beginning in late 2012, but the slow-moving talks ground to a halt before a June election, in which his AKP lost its single-party majority for the first time since 2002. Erdogan’s opponents fear Sunday’s election result, which could pave the way for him to assume greater presidential powers, risks making the country increasingly authoritarian.

Economic development will be the focus of Turkey’s new government, said Huseyin Altinalan, expert on Turkey, head of the Anadolu Agency’s Istanbul bureau. Erdogan has lashed out at the party, calling it the political arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party, which Turkey and most Western countries consider a terrorist organization. Erdogan had presented Sunday’s polls as a chance to restore stability at a time of tension over Kurdish insurrection and after two bombings, attributed to Islamic State.