November 1, 2015

Turkey heading to polls in snap parliament elections

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Sunday 01 Nov 2015 - 14:34 Makkah mean time-19-1-1437

Ankara (IINA) - Turkey is heading to polls for a second time in five months amid instability spilling over from neighboring Syria and renewed tensions over the 30-year-old Kurdish conflict.
More than 54 million people are registered to vote at 175,000 stations on Sunday between 7am and 4pm in the eastern provinces of Turkey, and 8am and 5pm in the western ones. The June 7 elections had seen the social conservative Justice and Development Party (AK party) lose its 13-year single party rule, but four political parties that made their way to the parliament failed to produce a coalition government and snap elections were called. In the June polls, the AK party secured 258 seats in the 550-seat house, losing many to the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which achieved unprecedented success for a pro-Kurdish party by getting 80 seats.
The unofficial election results are to be announced on Sunday evening and the country's election council will make the official ones public in several days. The main opposition center-left Republican People's Party (CHP) and far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP), which respectively won 131 and 80 seats in the last elections, are the other main players in the polls - among the 16 political parties in the fray. Parties need to secure 276 seats to govern the country alone. Latest surveys predict a similar four-party setting in the parliament after Sunday's polls, Al Jazeera News channel reported.
However, opinion polls have diverse results on the AK Party's capability to secure a single-party government once again. Baris Yilmaz, a 33-year-old voter, said there is no election atmosphere in Turkey as people do not expect much change compared to June 7 elections. "I don't anticipate and want a single-party government after the elections. I expect the ruling party to enter into coalition with one of the opposition parties," he said after casting his vote at a polling station in Kadikoy on the Asian part of Istanbul. "I believe tension in the country will decrease following the polls after a coalition is formed,." 
In addition to the political uncertainty that came with the failed government talks, Turkey is going through economic and security instability. Three bomb attacks in recent months on political and activist rallies across Turkey blamed on ISIL came as a shock to the Turkish public, killing 139 people. Particularly, a bomb attack in October at a peace rally in the capital Ankara killed 102 people and was the worst in the country's modern history.
HA/IINA
 

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