Turkish voters rebuke Erdogan in parliamentary elections

The result likely puts an end, for now, to Erdogan’s hopes of passing constitutional changes that would have greatly boosted the powers of his office. Sunday’s election was a quasi referendum on these ambitions; the new powers would have altered Turkey’s democratic process and prolonged Erdogan’s period as the country’s most powerful politician.

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If the AKP had won a majority of 330 seats, it would have called a referendum to change the constitution; if it had managed to receive 367 seats, it could have voted in a change without a referendum.

But now the party will have to seek a coalition partner to stay in power. The nationalist MHP party had seemed a likely candidate, but its leader Devlet Bahceli has ruled that out, and called for early elections if other options fail.

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