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 Turkey portal |
General elections were held in Turkey on 3 November 2002 following the collapse of the Democratic Left Party–Nationalist Movement Party–Motherland Party coalition led by Bülent Ecevit. All 550 members of the Grand National Assembly were up for election.
The elections were held during an ongoing economic crisis that followed the 2001 financial crash, which resulted in a deep resentment of coalition governments which had governed the country since the 1980 military coup. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Republican People's Party (CHP) between them made massive gains, winning 98.36% of the seats between them. As a result, Turkey moved from the multi-party parliament under a coalition government formed after the 1999 elections to a two-party parliament ruled by an AKP government. No other party won any seats and only nine independents were elected to the parliament.
The AKP, which had only been formed in August 2001 by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, won the election, securing nearly two-thirds of the seats (363 seats won with 34% of the vote). The only other party to pass the 10% threshold to gain representation in parliament was the CHP, which came second (178 seats secured from 19.38% of the vote). The election produced Turkey's first single party government since 1987 and the country's first two-party parliament since 1961.
The moderate Islamism advocated by the AKP was at odds with the secular establishment of the Republic of Turkey. While serving as the Mayor of Istanbul, Erdoğan had been sentenced to a 10-month prison term in 1998 for reciting a poem in Siirt for which he was accused of inciting racial intolerance. This initially barred him from seeking a seat in parliament, meaning that the AKP's co-founder Abdullah Gül became the first AKP Prime Minister following their election victory. With the help of the CHP, the government overturned Erdoğan's political ban in 2003, after which he was able to seek a seat in a controversial by-election in the Province of Siirt. Erdoğan became Prime Minister in March 2003, with Abdullah Gül assuming the roles of Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.