General elections were held in Turkey on 12 June 2011 to elect the 550 members of Grand National Assembly. In accordance to the result of the constitutional referendum held in 2007, the elections were held four years after the previous elections in 2007 instead of five.
The result was a third consecutive victory for the incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP), with its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan being re-elected as Prime Minister for a third term with 49.8% of the vote and 327 MPs. This represented an increase of 3.2% since the 2007 Turkish general election and an 11.4% rise since the 2009 Turkish local elections. The victory was attributed to the strong sustained economic recovery after the Great Recession as well as the completion of several projects such as the İzmir commuter railway, inter-city high speed rail lines and airports in Amasya, Gökçeada and Gazipaşa (Antalya).
The Republican People's Party (CHP) also saw an increase in its popular vote share, receiving 26.0% and winning 135 seats. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) received 13.0% and won 53 seats, representing a slight loss of support since 2007. The elections were the first to be contested by the CHP's new leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who replaced Deniz Baykal in 2010.
The elections were marred by violence originating mainly from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is recognised as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
Background.
Emboldened by the 2010 constitutional referendum, AKP leaders said they would create a new constitution after the 2011 elections.
On 3 March 2011 Parliament approved a ruling party proposal to set 12 June as the date for the general elections. The proposal was submitted by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on 21 February and was approved unanimously in the Parliament's General Assembly. In its proposal, the AKP pointed to the appropriateness of 12 June as the election date considering the June dates for the placement test for high schools (SBS) and the university entrance exam (LYS). Seeking high voter turnout, the heat during the summer was also considered during the choice of date.
Electoral system.
In accordance with a law approved by Parliament last year that made changes to Turkey's election laws, Turkish voters encountered some new rules and reforms during the general election of 2011. The changes sought to bring Turkish election campaign regulations up to European standards.
Turkish voters living abroad will have to wait for another election to be able to cast their votes in the countries in which they are residing due to the inability to institute electronic voting. Turkish voters abroad thus needed to cast their votes at customs gates.
Regions.
The number of MPs by province was redistributed according to the most recent population data. The number of deputies in Parliament for Istanbul was increased by 15, for Ankara by three and İzmir by two; Antalya, Diyarbakır, Van and Şırnak each received one more seat in Parliament. Ankara's two regions yielded 15 and 16 deputies. Istanbul, made up of three regions, elected 30, 27 and 28 deputies. İzmir, with two regions, elected 13 deputies each from both regions.
The number of MPs by province
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Contesting parties.
On 5 March 2011 Turkey's Supreme Election Board announced that twenty-seven political parties had signed up to participate in the 12 June general elections:
Nine smaller political parties decided to change their election strategy. Some of them decided to participate in the elections as independent, while others formed an alliance under one party.
On 19 April 2011 the Supreme Election Board announced that ÖDP and YP could not join the 12 June general elections as they could not hand out their necessary documents on time. Thus, the number of political parties joined the elections dropped to 15.
Campaign.
Justice and Development Party.
The large number of applications gave the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) nearly 15 million Turkish Liras in revenue ahead of the 12 June general elections.
AKP, which had the most female deputies in the outgoing Parliament, planned to expand that number for the new term. Its aim was that all provinces with four to five deputies had at least one female deputy candidate during the election. The total 5,599 applications to the AKP included those of 855 female candidates and 315 candidates with disabilities. Each male applicant paid a fee of 3,000 liras, while women paid half that sum and people with disabilities had their fees waived. The applications thus brought in a total of 14.85 million liras to the party. This revenue, however, will not remain in the AKP's bank account after the elections, party leader Erdoğan said, explaining that candidates who did not make it onto the party's list will have their money returned.
Key figures who applied to be AKP candidates included Ambassador Volkan Bozkır, the head of Turkey's General Secretariat for the European Union and former Istanbul Governor Muammer Güler.
12 April 2011 was the last date for political parties to submit their list of candidate MPs to the Higher Election Board for the general elections. Prime Minister Erdoğan dismissed half his party's parliamentary deputies for this election, aiming to rejuvenate the party as he sought a third term in power. Erdoğan nominated only 146 deputies out of the 333 parliamentary seats for the ruling Justice &amp; Development party to stand again in this election. Of the AKP's 550 candidates, 514 had university degrees. There were also 11 people with disabilities on the list. Important figures from the party kept their positions with many ministers moved to the coastal regions where the party previously attracted fewer votes.
Following a rally by Erdoğan in Kastamonu on 4 May, assailants ambushed a police convoy killing one person and wounding another. The Kurdistan Workers Party claimed responsibility for the attack after Erdoğan accused "separatists" at another rally for the attack.
Republican People's Party.
The 2011 general election was the first general election in which Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu participated as the leader of Republican People's Party (CHP). The former CHP leader Deniz Baykal resigned from his post in May 2010 and left the CHP with 26% of the votes, according to opinion polls. Kılıçdaroğlu announced that he would resign from his post if he was not successful in the 2011 elections. He did not provide details as to what his criteria for success were. Over 3,500 people applied to run for the main opposition party in the June elections. Male candidates paid 3,000 Turkish Liras to submit an application; female candidates paid 2,000 while those with disabilities paid 500 liras. Among the candidates were former CHP leader Deniz Baykal and arrested Ergenekon suspects such as Mustafa Balbay and Mehmet Haberal.
The party held primary elections in 29 provinces. Making a clean break with the past, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu left his mark on the Republican People's Party's 435-candidate list, leaving off 78 current deputies as he sought to redefine and reposition the main opposition. The CHP's candidate list also included 11 politicians who were formerly part of center-right parties, such as the Motherland Party, the True Path Party and the Turkey Party. Center-right voters gravitated toward the AKP when these other parties virtually collapsed after the 2002 elections. Key party figures that did not make it on to the list, criticised the CHP for making "a shift in axis."
Opinion polls.
In the local elections of 2009, the ruling AKP received 39% of the votes. The second party CHP received 23% of the votes, and the third party MHP received 16% of the votes. In the run up to the general election of 2011, the polling organisations noted a growth in the popularity of the AKP. Polling organisations showed a rate between 42% and 51%. For CHP, the numbers varied between 25% and 30%. MHP was mostly shown between 10% and 14%
Analysis.
The ruling party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won a third term in parliamentary elections. Erdoğan is the only prime minister in Turkish history to win three consecutive general elections and each time receive more votes than in the previous election. Four party groups will take their place in Turkey's new Parliament as electoral officials had counted all the votes. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) will form a majority government after winning just a shade under 50 percent of the popular vote; the incumbents will be joined again by the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in the legislature. The 327 seats won by AKP are slightly less than the 330 required to propose constitutional changes to a referendum without the support of other parties in parliament, and falls far short of the two-thirds majority needed to rewrite Turkey's 1982 military constitution unilaterally without the need for a referendum. 
A total of 73 AKP senior officials were elected for the last time in this election. The party's bylaws state that a person can run for Parliament for three consecutive terms at most. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, parliamentary Speaker Mehmet Ali Şahin, deputy prime ministers Bülent Arınç, Cemil Çiçek, Ali Babacan, ministers Beşir Atalay, Faruk Çelik, Mehmet Mehdi Eker, Sadullah Ergin, Egemen Bağış, Nimet Çubukçu, Hayati Yazıcı, Vecdi Gönül, Taner Yıldız, Nihat Ergün, Binali Yıldırım and Recep Akdağ are among those who will not be eligible for nomination in the next general election.
The second largest party in parliament, the Republican People's Party, won 25.9% of the vote. MHP won 13% of the vote, more than the 10% threshold required to win seats in Parliament. Thirty-five independent candidates, all of whom were backed by the Kurdish BDP under their Labour, Democracy and Freedom Bloc alliance (together with other parties, including the Rights and Freedoms Party, the Participatory Democracy Party and the Labour Party), were also voted in. Leyla Zana (50) returns to Parliament two decades after she was elected to the national assembly for the first time in 1991.
Erol Dora, a Syriac lawyer elected as independent but supported by the BDP, is the first ethnic Assyrian member of the Grand National Assembly and the first Christian MP since 1960 (the Armenian Migirdich Shellefyan was an MP in 1955–1960).
The number of female deputies was boosted from 46 to 78. With 44 female deputies, the AKP ranks the first. This term, there will be 20 female deputies from the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), three from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and 11 among the Kurdish Peace and Democracy (BDP)-backed independents in Parliament.
The oldest member of Parliament Oktay Ekşi from CHP, who was the youngest member of Constituent Assembly of 1961, will act as the parliamentary speaker temporarily during the oath ceremony. Bilal Macit (26) from AKP has become the youngest member of Parliament.
Hatip Dicle (BDP) was stripped of his seat after losing an appeal against a prior conviction for spreading terrorist propaganda. His seat went to Oya Eronat of the AKP. There are speculations that the remaining BDP MPs boycotted parliament because of this incident, but that attitude did not bring him to the parliament. Both AKP and CHP favoured amending the law in this case to allow Dicle to take his seat; a similar case had already applied to PM Erdoğan in 2003, when the law was also changed to allow for his seating.
Two CHP MPs, journalist Mustafa Balbay and academic Mehmet Haberal, were in jail at the time for suspected involvement in the Ergenekon conspiracy; applications for their release were denied, which was strongly criticized by the CHP, who said they would appeal the ruling.
BDP and CHP both boycotted parliament's opening ceremony, as Dicle had been stripped of his seat and eight other MPs were refused attendance due to prison terms considered political by both BDP and CHP.
References.
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