TURKEY: Turks vote AK party back in to power

Turks have voted in a parliamentary election deemed crucial to the future of the country. The poll was won decisively by the leading AK party. Millions of Turks voted on Sunday (July 22) in a parliamentary election seen as crucial to the future direction of this large Muslim but secular democracy straddling Europe and the Middle East. Turkey's ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party won more than 50 percent of the vote in a national victory, early results indicated. The stronger than expected showing gives the pro-business party a mandate for reform but potentially sets the stage for renewed tensions with the secular elite, a few months after a clash over who should be president triggered the early election. "Let our election of representatives be beneficial to our people, our country and to our democracy," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told reporters as he and his wife Emine cast their ballots in his conservative Uskudar constituency on the Asian side of Istanbul. With more than half the votes counted, two secularist parties crossed the 10 percent threshold to enter parliament -- the leftist CHP on around 18 percent and the ultra-nationalist MHP on 16. AK lawmakers declared victory, saying the party would win enough seats to form a single-party government for a second five-year term. Polls closed an hour earlier in eastern Turkey where the Republican People's Party (CHP) and far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are relatively weak, so the early figures might not be entirely representative of the final results. Economists said financial markets would welcome the results. If both the CHP and MHP clear the 10 percent hurdle the AK Party might end up with fewer seats than in the outgoing assembly, despite winning a much bigger share of the vote than in 2002, when the MHP failed to get into parliament. The respected Konda polling agency said the partial results would give the AK Party 334 seats -- down from 352 before -- the CHP would gain 94 and the MHP 88 seats. Electoral commission officials estimated turnout at around 80 percent in the large Muslim country of 74 million people. Erdogan, 53, Turkey's most popular politician, called the poll early after the secular elite, including the powerful army, stopped him appointing a fellow ex-Islamist, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, as president. Secularists say the AK Party wants to undermine Turkey's strict separation of religion and state, but the ruling party denies this. Earlier this year during a crisis over the presidential election, the military pledged to intervene in politics if Turkey's secular principles were threatened. The army views itself as the ultimate guarantor of Turkey's secular state. It has ousted four cabinets in the past 50 years, most recently an Islamist-minded predecessor of the AK Party in 1997. Erdogan, who denies any Islamist agenda, has presided over strong economic growth and falling inflation since his party swept to power in 2002 on the back of a financial crisis. He has vowed more economic, social and political reforms needed to join the European Union despite scepticism over whether the bloc will ever let Turkey join. Some independent, mostly pro-Kurdish candidates, are also tipped to win seats in the 550-member parliament. One is Kurdish independent candidate Aysel Tugluk, who cast her vote in the southern, mostly Kurdish, Turkish city of Diyarbakir. Just before voting in the parliamentary elections, Tugluk, a Democratic Society Party (DTP) leader, said she hoped the elections would unite the Turkish people. "Let my vote be beneficial to the Democratic Republic and to the union of our people," she said. Turkish security forces have been battling PKK Kurdish rebels since 1984 in a conflict that has cost more than 30,000 lives. Violent clashes have increased over the past year. MHP leader Devlet Bahceli cast his vote in the capital Ankara. A member of his constituency said she was voting in order to see the back of the current government. "I'm not happy with the existing government, I don't want them. I think we will have a coalition government after the elections. I would like to see CHP (Republican People's Party) and MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) in this coalition," said voter Ozge Derinden. Turkey's next government will have to decide whether to send the army into northern Iraq to crush PKK rebels based there, a move that is increasingly worrying the United States. Nationalists are also sceptical about Turkey's EU bid.

ITN Source | July 23, 2007

Tags:. .coalition. .principles. .crucial. .ballots. .stronger