Turkey's AKP makes strong comeback, wins enough seats for single-party rule

With a remarkable boost in just five months since the June 7 election, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the Nov. 1 snap election with a landslide victory, securing a decisive majority at parliament.

The seats in the national assembly will still be occupied by four parties, but the AKP has seen a sharp rise in its share, raising the chances of it making a constitutional amendment that would pave the way for a transition to a presidential system in line with the ambitions of its founding leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an.

The AKP secured around 49.4 percent of the vote, giving it 315 seats in the 550-member parliament, according to results with almost all ballots counted. For a constitutional change at parliament in favor of the presidential system in line with Erdo?an's aspirations, the AKP needed to win 367 seats, though 330 seats would be enough to take the issue to a referendum.

 
 The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) encountered a considerable disappointment, as it only managed to slightly improve on its June 7 performance, getting around 25.8 percent.

Both the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) lost a considerable number of votes. The HDP, which got 13.2 percent of the votes in June, again managed to cross the 10 percent election threshold to get representation in parliament, but only by a narrow margin. 

The MHP's loss was even sharper, dropping to around 12 percent from 16 percent in June, apparently losing a sizable chunk of support to the AKP.

The results of the vote, which also tested the leadership of Prime Minister and AKP head Ahmet Davuto?lu, came as a surprise to most people. The election had...