Turkey held two parliamentary elections in 2015 amid an
exceptionally polarized and volatile political environment. Prior to the first
vote in June, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan campaigned for the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP), hoping that it could gain 60 percent of
parliamentary seats, which would allow it to call a referendum on
constitutional changes to create a stronger presidency. In a surprise result,
the AKP failed to secure even a simple parliamentary majority, while the
Kurdish-oriented Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) cleared the 10 percent
electoral threshold for representation in the legislature. Four parties entered
the parliament, but negotiations to form a coalition government failed, and new
elections were called for November. In this round, the AKP won 49 percent of
the vote, an eight-point improvement on the June result, and 317 seats, enough
for a majority but short of the 60 percent goal. Nonetheless, Erdoğan indicated
that he would seek the support required to press ahead with the adoption of a
presidential system.
The political and security situation surrounding the November
elections was deeply affected by violence that rocked Turkey throughout the
second half of 2015. In July, a bombing at a gathering of Kurdish student activists
in Suruç, a town on the Syrian border, killed 33 people. The Syrian-based
Islamic State (IS) militant group was blamed for the attack, but many Kurds
accused the government of complicity or failure to address the threat from IS.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group then killed two Turkish
police officers in retaliation, setting off broader fighting that ended a
two-year cease-fire between the PKK and the government. By year’s end, hundreds
of soldiers and police, PKK fighters, and civilians had been killed. Armed
gangs of Kurdish youth took over parts of some towns in the Kurdish-populated
southeast, and government forces moved in to restore control. In addition, in
September and October there were some 200 attacks by civilian mobs against
offices of the HDP, which the AKP and nationalist parties accused of being a
political wing of the PKK. Over 40 HDP mayors were arrested or removed from
office. Also in October, a bombing in Ankara that was attributed to IS killed
102 people at another largely Kurdish demonstration.
A continued crackdown on the media added to the pressure on the
electoral environment. Throughout the year, dozens of journalists were arrested
and prosecuted for insulting the president and other government officials or
for allegedly supporting terrorist organizations. Numerous websites were also
blocked. A week before the November elections, the government seized the assets
of a major conglomerate, including two daily newspapers, Millet and Bugün, and two
television channels that had been critical of the ruling party.
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