Turkey’s elections: AKP loses absolute majority, thwarts Erdogan’s bid for executive presidency

Expert Comment (The Elcano Royal Institute) 40/2015, 8 June 2015
Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estratégicos

William Chislett *

Turkey’s Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its absolute parliamentary majority for the first time since sweeping to power in 2002, and with it Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambition for greater power by changing the constitution to become an executive president.

The autocratic Erdogan, three-time prime minister and the country’s first directly elected president as of 2014, won 258 of the 550 seats (327 in 2011), 18 short of a simple majority and far from the two-thirds majority (330 seats) he had hoped to win in order to call a referendum on the constitution and turn Turkey from a parliamentary into a presidential system.

* William Chislett is Associate Analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute | @WilliamChislet3

Download full text (Format Pdf)