A SHOCK landslide for Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, the AKP, has raised fears that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will attempt to impose a dictatorship on the country.



Erdogan is now expected to tighten his grip on the media and judicial system as well as increase his own powers.

The results announced yesterday saw the AKP winning nearly half the vote and more than the 276 seats needed to form a majority government.

Violence was reported in Diyarbakir, a mainly Kurdish city, and police firing tear gas at protesters who claim the pro-Kurdish HDP’s poor show is a result of dirty tactics by Erdogan and his party.

Opposition campaigning was scaled down for safety reasons after a bomb blast at a peace rally in Ankara killed 102 people three weeks ago. While the suicide bombers appeared to be from Islamist militant group Daesh, the opposition accused the government of failing to protect the marchers and claimed the AKP has turned a blind eye to Daesh operations within Turkey.

With Erdogan’s stranglehold on the media, both the HDP, who secured 59 seats, and the right-wing nationalist MHP, who won 41, claimed the election was far from fair.

The centre-left CHP, who had expected to gain ground, was also left disappointed with just 134 seats.

The President said yesterday that the electorate had “given proof of their strong desire for unity and integrity”.

Meanwhile Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told voters: “You saw the dirty games played in our country, and you have changed the game”.

CIVIL WAR



ERDOGAN (left) demanded global recognition for the result yesterday.

“Now a party with some 50 per cent of the vote in Turkey has attained power... This should be respected by the whole world, but I have not seen such maturity,” he said.

He was triumphant over the success of his gamble in calling a quick election after attempts to form a coalition failed, following AKP’s loss of its parliamentary majority in June after 13 years of power.

Female MPs were among the casualties of this election with a sharp drop in the record number elected in June.

Erdogan is still 14 seats short of the number required to stage a referendum on increasing the powers of the president but there are still fears the AKP will now feel strong enough to clamp down even more on free speech and will continue to stoke political polarisation.

“How can Turkey overcome this polarisation? It’s difficult to say,” says analyst Sinan Ekim. “What is certain is that distancing Turkey from the brink of a civil war will be one of the greatest challenges for the country’s next administration.”

A ceasefire between militants from the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish army was broken following a suspected Daesh suicide bombing near the Syrian border in July which killed nearly 30 Kurds.

Many suspect Erdogan has fostered the violence to wipe out support for the pro-Kurdish HDP party, led by Selahattin Demirtas (below, right). In the weeks leading up to the election there was violence in the Kurdish areas but opposition leaders maintain this has been stoked by Erdogan to frighten voters.

Despite the fact the presidential position is supposed to be largely ceremonial and above politics Erdogan campaigned heavily using the slogan: “It’s me or chaos”.

REFUGEES

VOTERS appear to have swallowed his message however and the West, while uncomfortable with his dodgy human rights record, believes his involvement is needed to help solve the Syrian crisis.

In return for stemming the flood of Syrian refugees from Turkey, Erdogan will be aiming to progress his country’s EU application without having to make too many compromises to suit Western tastes.

Some believe his aim is to break the power of the secularist military establishment and substitute a fundamentally conservative Muslim society.

Before the AKP took power the military had frequently intervened to tone down Islamist influence but Erdogan has curbed the military elite in recent years by sentencing 17 senior officers to life imprisonment after they were found guilty of plotting to overthrow the AKP. There were also accusations of trumped up charges when Operation Sledgehammer detained more than 200 officers along with secularist politicians and journalists in 2011.

Others supported him for nailing establishment officials who regarded themselves as above the law.

Erdogan has also been battered by a corruption scandal but fought back by blaming plotters outside Turkey. He has railed against social media and vowed to wipe out Twitter.

Two years ago the ban was lifted the ban on women wearing headscarves at certain state institutions and he also tried to criminalise adultery and bring in “alcohol free zones”.

Critics have been outraged, too, at his new £385m presidential palace which is bigger than the White House.

Despite economic stability for ten years, the economy has flagged recently with unemployment soaring above 10 per cent and inflation currently around 7 per cent.

While Erdogan supports the overthrow of Assad in Syria, he has refused to aid Syrian Kurds fighting Daesh.There is bitter division over government’s policy in Syria and its handling of the PKK.

The election will likely aggravate tension between pious conservatives backing Erdogan and secularists worried about his growing authoritarianism and Islamist ideals.