Turkey's Ruling Akp Loses Majority

- The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has lost its single party majority after almost 13 years, as the Peoples' Demokratic Party (HDP) passed the election threshold.

The ruling AKP has framed the June 7 election in Turkey as a key hurdle on the path to the powerful presidential system that President Tayyip Erdoğan wants to introduce.

With about 99 percent of the vote counted and despite being well ahead of other parties with the support of around 40 percent of the populace, the AKP seemed set to received fewer than 276 seats – the bare minimum to keep its parliamentary majority.

With more than 99.4 percent of the votes counted, the AKP stands at 40.82 percent, the Republican People’s Party (CHP) is at 25.00 percent, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is the third party with 16.35 percent of the votes while the HDP is well above the 10 percent threshold at 13.11 percent.

AKP seen to have 258 seats in the parliament, followed by CHP with 132 seats, the MHP with 80 seats and HDP with 80 seats.

“Everyone should know that the AKP is the winner of this election," Turkish PM Davutoğlu told his supporters, claiming the result shows that his party is "the backbone of Turkey." “No one should worry. We will take every precaution within this political framework to maintain stability and the comfort that AKP cadres have provided in the last 12-13 years,” he added

"Long live democracy!" CHP chair Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu tells his supporters in a victorious mood. “We have ended an oppressive era through democratic ways. Democracy has won; Turkey has won,” he said.

MHP leader Bahçeli rules out any coalition alternative that his nationalist party can be a part of. "It should be a coalition in harmony. The AKP engaged in the solution bid [to solve Turkey's Kurdish problem] with the HDP. These parties should form a coalition. The second model is AKP-CHP-HDP. Our party is ready to be the main opposition party if such a coalition is formed" he says.

"As of this moment, the debate on the presidency, the debate about dictatorship, has come to an end in Turkey. Turkey has returned from the edge of a cliff," HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş tells journalists in his first post-election speech, stressing the "unfairness" of campaign stemming from the AKP's use of "all the state's powers." Describing the result as a "magnificent victory," Demirtaş said all people who are for freedoms, all the oppressed, all workers, all women and all minorities, had won together.