Say goodbye to 13 years of Turkey’s one party rule. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wanted to change Turkey’s constitution to expand the president’s powers. Voters rejected that, but a historic breakthrough for Turkey’s pro-Kurdish coalition was with the HDP. What will this result mean for the region?
The AKP won around 258 seats — a loss of around 70 seats from the previous election in 2011. That left Erdoğan’s AKP party far short of the majority it needed to form a single-party government and change in the Constitution.
Erdoğan was seeking a two-thirds majority-enough to amend the constitution and transform Turkey into a presidential republic, shifting more power from parliament to the presidency, but
Turkey’s voters said no.
Nora Fisher Onar joined the Heat to discuss, she is a fellow at the Transatlantic Academy and the German Marshall Fund in Washington.
The Heat continued its discussion with a panel who focuses on Turkish issues:
- Kani Xulam, director of American Kurdish Information Network.
- From Ankara, journalist Tulin Daloglu.
- And Hakan Camuz, chairman of the UK branch of the Turkish Independent Industrialists & Businessmen’s Association.
The Heat discusses the Turkish elections pt. 2
The Heat continued its discussion with a panel who focuses on Turkish issues.