Polls closed in 32 eastern provinces of Turkey on Nov. 1 at 4 p.m. amid intense security measures due to recent clashes in the region.
During the polling hours, police special operations team stood ready near schools in the Sur district of Diyarbakır, which had previously experienced eight curfews during clashes between security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The Republican People’s Party (CHP), which had entertained hopes of making gains through a constructive election campaign, failed to increase its votes significantly in the Nov. 1 polls, remaining Turkey's main opposition party.
With just days to go to Turkey’s snap general election on Nov. 1, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has again voiced his clear preference for having a “single-party government” elected to rule the country.
Only five months since the last general election failed to produce a single-party government, Turkish voters return to polling stations on Nov. 1, with slim prospects of a substantial difference raising the stakes for all parties.
The five months since the June 7 vote have seen renewed clashes between the security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), major attacks likely staged by jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and a widespread feeling of vulnerability amid security gaps.
An ongoing tussle between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the co-chair of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) has reached Washington after the former suggested that a company that once managed U.S. President Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign has now been hired by the Kurdish problem-focused party to run its campaign for the Nov.
World's leading rights group has warned against restriction over Internet freedom in Turkey, highlighting that the Internet freedom is "highly imperiled" in the country where many are prosecuted and harassed for what they write online.
As extremist violence and political uncertainty cast a shadow over Turkey, voters are looking for Sunday's parliamentary election to usher in stability. But in a deeply polarized country, the most likely result is more confusion.
Global press organizations including the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), PEN International and the International Press Institute (IPI) have decried a government-led takeover of Koza İpek Holding, which owns media outlets that are critical of the interim Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government.
A Justice and Development Party (AKP) official’s suggestion that Turkey will again head to the polls if the Nov. 1 polls do not produce a majority government are tantamount to blackmail of the country, the main opposition has said.
“If a result resembling the June 7 results emerges, I’m afraid there will again be talk of elections,” AKP Deputy Chair Mehmet Ali Şahin said recently.
The Nov. 1 snap election is the key to getting Turkey out of the instability and insecurity it was dragged into after the June 7 election, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has argued, while reiterating an earlier warning to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to be fair in its evaluation of the upcoming elections.
Ali Kayalar.-
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) is expecting a comeback of nearly 7 percent of its voters, who had earlier casted their vote for the party but stepped back in the June 7 election, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmuş has said.
“The political outlook that emerged after [the] June 7 [election] will bring the AKP new votes due to a search for political sustainability and a powerful government,” Kurtulmuş told Hürriyet Daily News during an interview on Oct. 26.
The names of around 672,000 people who cast their votes in the June 7 general election are missing from the voter lists that were prepared ahead of the Nov. 1 snap election, according to a statement made by Republican People's Party (CHP) İzmir deputy Erdal Aksünger during a press conference on Monday in İzmir.
The number of Turkish citizens who cast their votes at Turkey’s missions abroad and at boarder gates for the Nov. 1 elections up until Oct. 25 increased by more than 230,000 people in comparison to the June 7 elections.
Out of 2,899,000 voters who reside abroad and were eligible to vote for the Nov. 1 polls in Turkey’s 113 foreign missions in 54 countries and at border gates, around 1,264,000 of them cast their votes between Oct. 8 and 25.
Oy ve Ötesi (Vote and Beyond), a civil society initiative that has mobilized thousands of people to monitor the reliability and transparency of the vote counting process in an effort to prevent election fraud ahead of the snap election on Nov. 1, has brushed off accusations by the pro-government media that it has teamed up with anti-government groups to itself commit election fraud.
Nearly 1.5 million of the 3 million Turkish citizens living abroad did not vote in the Turkish general election, scheduled for Nov. 1 in Turkey itself, with voting ending at 9 p.m. on Sunday in the voters' respective countries.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has asked his supporters to bring his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to single party rule again in Nov. 1 general elections, asking them “not to make me obliged” to meet opposition leader Devlet Bahçeli and Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu for coalition talks.
Turkey’s nationalist opposition leader has given a stark warning a week before the Nov. 1 snap elections, suggesting the rise of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) to power as a single-party government might lead to “chaos,” as it would encourage President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to impose his aspirations for a presidential system.
“The Nov. 1 elections are more important than the June 7 elections. The results of this election may lead to notable chaos [and] nightmares [for the country],” Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), said late on Oct. 22.
The Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) refusal to take disciplinary action against Istanbul deputy Abdurrahim Boynukalın indicates that it supports recent physical attacks against the offices of daily Hürriyet, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu has said.
