2007 Turkish general election

2007 Turkish general election

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550 seats in the Grand National Assembly 276 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	84.25% (5.11pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Deniz Baykal Devlet Bahçeli Party AK Party CHP MHP Last election 34.28%, 363 seats 19.39%, 178 seats 8.36%, 0 seats Seats won 341 112 71 Seat change 22 66 71 Popular vote 16,327,291 7,317,808 5,001,869 Percentage 46.58% 20.88% 14.27% Swing 12.30pp 1.49pp 5.91pp
Prime Minister before election Recep Tayyip Erdoğan AK Party Elected Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan AK Party

Politics of Turkey
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General elections were held in Turkey on 22 July 2007 to elect 550 members to the Grand National Assembly. Originally scheduled for November, the elections were brought forward after parliament failed to elect a new president to replace Ahmet Necdet Sezer. The result was a resounding victory for the incumbent Justice and Development Party (AKP), which won 46.6% of the vote and 341 seats. The party's leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was consequently re-elected as Prime Minister of Turkey. The opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) came second with 20.9% of the vote and took 112 seats. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which had failed to surpass the 10% election threshold in the 2002 election, re-entered parliament with 14.3% of the vote and 71 MPs.^[1] The election was fought mostly on Turkey's debate over laïcité that had been perceived to be under threat from the AKP's nomination of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül, an Islamist politician, for the Presidency. Developments in Iraq (explained under positions on terrorism and security), secular and religious concerns, the intervention of the military in political issues, European Union membership negotiations, the United States and the Muslim world were other main issues.

In addition to the AKP, CHP and MHP, several Kurdish nationalist and socialist parties formed an electoral alliance named the Thousand Hope Candidates (Bin Umut Adayları) and contested the election as independents in order to bypass the 10% threshold. The alliance, formed of the Democratic Society Party (DTP), Labour Party (EMEP), Freedom and Solidarity Party (ÖDP) and the Socialist Democracy Party (SDP), polled strongly in the south-east where there is a large Kurdish population, receiving 3.81% of the national vote and 22 seats in parliament.