Parliamentary Elections Open in Turkey
KABUL: (Middle East Press) Turkish people are set to go to the polls on Sunday, November 1 in a parliamentary election five months after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its majority in parliament and failed to form a coalition government.
Political parties staged their final rallies on Saturday on the eve of the vote, while many are waiting to see whether the Justice and Development Party (AKP), founded by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would be able to garner enough votes to govern alone.
Polling stations opened on Sunday at 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) in the east, where people have until 4:00 p.m. (1300 GMT) to participate in the election, while voting is underway from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (0500 GMT to 1400 GMT) in the west.
Some 54 million Turks are registered to vote in the country of nearly 80 million.
Opinion polls have shown that the new election is very likely to repeat the shock of the June vote, which ended the AKP’s majority after 13 years of single-party rule.
The party is expected to receive between 40 and 43 percent of the vote, which means it either has to form a shaky coalition that may not last long or the country should hold another election.
