Turkey election: Protests turn violent in Diyarbakir

The Turkish lira was up about 4 percent against the dollar on Monday morning, while the main stock index rallied 5.5 percent as investors cheered the result, which ends a period of political uncertainty.

“The will of the nation has shown itself in favour of stability”, Erdogan told reporters after morning prayers at an Istanbul mosque.

He called for Turks to “remain united” and said the entire world should respect the result.

The election Sunday returns Turkey to single-party rule just five months after the AKP lost its majority in parliament for the first time in more than a decade.

The result is a huge personal victory for the 61-year-old “Sultan”, who may now be able to secure enough support for his controversial ambitions to expand his role into a powerful US-style executive presidency.

Meanwhile the co-chair of the European Greens party Reinhard Bütikofer has said the EU should carefully scrutinize the results of Sunday’s vote, in which the AKP’s dominance surprised many.

“Although unexpected, AKP’s victory may be the optimal election outcome for near-term economic and asset dynamics in Turkey”, said Roxana Hulea, an emerging markets strategist at Societe Generale in London. This is to be the country’s 26th parliament.

Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, the two leaders of the HDP party that failed to perform as well in Sunday’s early elections as it did in inconclusive polls in June, announced that the party has endured great pressure.

The worldwide community will also be watching Turkey’s policy towards neighbouring Syria, after it was finally cajoled into joining the US-led coalition against ISIS and launched its own “war on terrorism” against the extremists, PKK fighters and even US-backed Syrian Kurds.

Erdogan said the outcome was a vote for stability, and a message to Kurdish insurgents in the country’s restive southeast that violence could not coexist with democracy.

Most analysts had expected AKP to fall short again, but the preliminary results suggest it picked up millions of votes at the expense of the nationalist MHP and pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP).

“I’m calling on all parties entering parliament to form a new civilian national constitution”, he said in a balcony speech to thousands of AK Party supporters at the party headquarters in Ankara, as fireworks lit the sky.

Turkey’s economic growth slid to less than three percent last year after levels around 10 percent five years ago, and the lira had tumbled around 25 percent since the start of 2015.