Turkish elections: Ruling party AKP regains majority

On 1 November, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) won a parliamentary election that regained the party the majority it lost in June.

According to the Anadolu Agency, AKP had won 49.4% of the vote, with the main opposition CHP on 25.4%, by around 20h on poling day.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declared that the result was a "victory for our democracy and our people".

Earlier polls had indicated that the AKP would receive only between 40-43% of the vote, in line with its performance in June - at that time, it lost its majority for the first time since 2002, and subsequent attempts to form a coalition government after the June election did not succeed.

At the most recent count on 1 November, with almost all results in, the AKP was set to win substantially more than the 276 seats it needed, which would allow the party to form a government in isolation. But the provisional result neverthless would fall slightly short of the number of seats needed to call a referendum on changing the constitution and increasing the powers of the president, AKP founder Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan has been recently accused of being " increasingly authoritarian" by the AKP's opponents, who said that the vote was a chance to curb this alleged tendency.

Since elections in June, a ceasefire between the Turkish army and militants from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) collapsed after a suicide bombing in July by suspected Islamic State (IS) militants.

The attack near the border with Syria killed more than 30 Kurds.

Turkey then suffered its deadliest attack in its modern history when more than 100 people were killed after a peace rally attended by mainly left-wing demonstrators, including many HDP supporters, was targeted by two suicide bombers.

The government said they were linked to IS.

The HDP scaled back its election campaign after the attack.

Critics have accused Mr Erdogan of renewing violence to curb support for the HDP - something the government denies.

One senior official from the HDP told Reuters the partial results were "disappointing".

With most votes counted, the HDP has 10.5% of the vote - enough to give it 59 parliamentary seats, 21 fewer than it claimed in June's election.

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