KABUL: (Middle East Press) People across the Turkey began casting vote in parliamentary elections, the results of which will determine whether President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can fulfill his ambitions for taking full control of executive powers, constitutionally in the hands of the country’s prime minister.
The parliamentary election kicked off at 08:00 am June 7, 2015 and will be completed at 17:00 according to High Election Board of Turkey.
Political parties and officials are banned to make any statements about the voting process till 24:00.
As many as 20 political parties are taking part in the election and 53,765,231 voters will participate in the voting.
The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) currently holds 327 out of the 550 parliamentary seats. If it can raise the number of the parliament seats to 330, it would be able to authorize a referendum on the constitution. If it gains a super-majority of 367 seats (two-thirds of the parliament), the AKP could simply make the changes it wants without popular vote.
However, opposition parties fear that the constitutional changes would increase what they describe as the president’s authoritarian tendencies.
If the Peoples’ Democratic Party manages to get into the parliament, the ruling party will have to form a coalition government. However, all the political parties, except the Peoples’ Democratic Party, are against forming a coalition government with the ruling party.
According to the ruling party’s statute, if it wins in the election, over 70 of the current MPs from this party will have the right to join the new government. Moreover, according to this structure’s statute, the MPs from this party have no right to be elected to the parliament for more than three terms.
During the parliamentary election held in Turkey in 2011, the ruling Justice and Development Party gained 46.66 percent of the vote. Some 20.85 percent of the votes went to the Republican People’s Party (CHP), and 14.29 percent of the votes were gathered by the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
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