Turkey in limbo as Erdogan falls short

Turkey’s ruling Islamic-rooted party is facing turbulence as it is likely to need a coalition partner to form the next government after suffering surprisingly strong losses in a national vote. Other parties vowed to resist any such pact.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamic-based Justice and Development Party, known as AKP, won less than 41% of the vote in Sunday’s election for Turkey’s 550-seat parliament. It was projected to take 258 seats, still top of the political heap but 18 seats below the minimum needed to rule alone.

The results dealt a direct slap to Erdogan, who had hoped to reshape Turkey’s democracy into one in which his increasingly powerful presidency, rather than the parliament, would wield most control of government affairs.

Erdogan, Turkey’s dominant political figure who was prime minister from 2003 to 2014, had campaigned for the AKP in hopes of boosting the party’s 327 seats.

“The dictator has collapsed,” proclaimed the Yurt newspaper headline.

Some voters were angry Erdogan had ignored the law requiring him to be neutral.

“In a country where the president is supposed to be independent, the president was out in the field. He wanted to be the only one in power, and the people did not give him permission,” said Istanbul resident Zeki Altay, who hoped the opposition parties would unite against the AKP.

Prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu of the AKP convened his cabinet yesterday to chart the most likely course to remain in power, whether by coaxing a reluctant opponent to the table or by trying to rule alone in a parliament where the AKP will be outnumbered by three empowered rivals.

Erdogan appealed for national unity and for political foes to come together to safeguard what he called “the gains made from stability and environment of trust in our country”.

In a statement, Erdogan, 61, conceded that his party needed a partner and could not run a stable minority government. The result, he said, “does not allow any party the possibility to govern alone” and required “a healthy and realistic assessment by all parties”.

The AKP’s surprise loss of parliamentary control looks likely to undermine Erdogan’s ambitions to make Turkey a dominant regional power. The result also casts doubt over Erdogan’s leadership of two years of peacemaking efforts with Kurdish leaders seeking to end a decades-old conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives.

Investors took fright at the potential loss of a one-party government. Turkey’s currency fell 5% to a record low of below 2.8 lira to the dollar, the stock market in Istanbul tumbled 8%, and the yields on Turkish government 10-year bonds surged nearly a full point to 10%.

The AKP government could remain for a few months before a new government is formed or, in event of failure, a new election is called. The official results are expected to be certified within two weeks. Once all politicians take their oath of office, all parties will have 45 days to negotiate a new governing alliance.

However, analysts say prospects have been soured by the divisive campaigning tactics of Erdogan who led fierce, partisan attacks on rival parties. Those parties — the centre-left Republican People’s Party, the right-wing Nationalist Movement Party, and the pro-Kurdish voice of the People’s Democratic Party — all said yesterday they would not prop up an AKP-led government.