ERDOGAN REPEATS MENDERES' RECORD

Turkey has not seen anything like this in 45 years. The Justice and Development Party (AK Party), which has been in power for the last nine years, won 49.91% of the votes, which qualifies it to form the single-party in government for the third time.

More than 21 million voters voted for the incumbent prime minister, which was 3.5% (about 5 million) more than in the 2007 elections. However, the 326 seats which the party won in the 550-seat Grand National Assembly is short of the 361 required to secure an absolute majority and still does not allow the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government to carry out reforms without the cooperation of the opposition. The prime minister will have to ask for his opponents' opinion, first and foremost to adopt the new Constitution.

The otherwise bright future of the Turkish ruling party is somewhat dimmed by the introduction of the new proportional system of distribution of seats in parliament, which has "cut off" 15 seats from the ruling party's parliamentary group. Some of the seats were taken away from Erdogan's party by its main opponent, the Republican People's Party (CHP), and the rest went to independent candidates supported by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP).

As expected, besides the AK Party, two more parties entered parliament - the Republican People's Party led by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, which won the votes of 25.91% of the voters (5% more than in 2007), and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) led by Devlet Bahceli, which received 12.99% of the votes (1.3% less than in 2007). As a result, Kilicdaroglu's supporters have 135 seats, and Bahceli's nationalists have 53. Independent candidates, supported by the pro-Kurdish BDP, won 36 seats. By law, they can create their own group, and then the Turkish parliament of the 24th convocation will be made up of four political forces - three parties and one parliamentary group

Erdogan's party has repeated the achievement of Adnan Menderes' Democratic Party which hitherto was the only party in the modern history of Turkey to form the government three times in a row. From 1950, Menderes and his supporters were in power in Turkey until they were toppled by the military junta and the prime minister was hanged. None of the popular Turkish politicians, including former presidents Suleyman Demirel and Turgut Ozal, were able to emulate this kind of success later on.

The last politician to win the votes of one half of the voters in the country was Suleyman Demirel, whose Justice Party won the support of 52% of the electorate in the now-distant year of 1965.

Journalists and analysts concur that the "Menderes record" was beaten in large part thanks to the impressive personal qualities of Erdogan himself. His reassurances of stability and urban development projects, coupled with the 9% growth in GDP which the Turkish economy posted last year, also had their effect.

Analysts were unanimous long before poling day that no more than three parties would clear the 10% barrier. Commentators asked only one question: To what extent would Erdogan's main rival, Kilicdaroglu, strengthen his position and would he clear the psychological barrier of 30% against the backdrop of recent scandals in the country's education sector which had a negative effect on the government's approval ratings.

The latest opinion polls suggested that this goal would be reached, but the reality has turned out to be not quite what the supporters of the CHP would have liked. The proactive election campaign, in which Kilicdaroglu was involved personally, turned out to be not so fruitful - he won just under 26% of the vote.

Among other things, the differences in the areas of emphasis in Erdogan's and Kilicdaroglu's campaigns also played a role in shaping the final outcome. If the ruling party stressed the "pocket" of the voters, the Republican People's Party appealed to the "conscience" of the citizens. The campaign slogans of the parties are good examples. Reacting to the slogans of Erdogan's supporters - "Let Turkey Grow" and "Stability Must Continue", Kilicdaroglu stressed the need to strengthen democracy and discussed pressure on the opposition and "wiretapping" of his activists. In other words, the ruling party talked about its plans to make the nation more prosperous, while the opposition did not cross the "line" of democratic reforms.

The entire Erdogan campaign boiled down to the following idea: "Look at what we have accomplished in recent years; God forbid the successful reforms will be stopped. All our undertakings must continue."

Another factor which played against Kilicdaroglu was the candidates whose names were listed among the members of the Ergenekon organization which planned a coup d'etat. Kilicdaroglu's inability to purge the lists of the candidates from the "old guard" of Deniz Baykal has thwarted the attempts to renew the image of the party.

In addition, the decision to attach key importance to criticism of Ankara's departure from the principle of "secularity" also turned out to be wrong. Erdogan's opponents are now satisfied that he is not going to transform the country into an "Islamic state". They had to change their rhetoric and also start emphasizing the quality of services. This is what enabled Erdogan's opponents to consolidate their constituency in Izmir, a city which is considered the stronghold of the opposition.

Another noteworthy aspect of Turkey's political arena is the strengthening of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party. The success of the party was accounted for not by the increase in the number of its supporters, but by the reform of the Electoral Code. This means that the BDP's propaganda of "democratic autonomy" for Turkey's ethnic Kurds did not win it support among ethnic Kurds. But a sizeable parliamentary group will enable the leaders of the pro-Kurdish party to discuss in greater detail the "problems" of Turkey's southeast in parliament.

Yet another distinguishing feature of the latest election campaign in Turkey was the almost total absence of foreign political issues on the agenda. In contrast to the 2007 elections, politicians tried not to bring up the issues of Turkey's membership of the EU or the Cyprus problem. Some degree of cooling in relations with the United States and Israel, processes in Northern Iraq and even unrest in neighbouring Syria also went unnoticed. The rhetoric exclusively focused on domestic political developments, and this means that there are no special objections to the country's foreign political course among Turkish politicians.

At the same time, the Azerbaijan factor was an important influence on the opinion of voters. The statement Erdogan made in Igdir in which he stressed the importance of "all possible assistance to brotherly Azerbaijan" was a clear manifestation of that.

Incidentally, Recep Tayyip Erdogan traditionally intends to pay his first official visits as the head of the new Turkish cabinet to Baku and to Northern Cyprus.

At any rate, the balance of power in the Turkish parliament has not changed after 12 June, and despite its third victory, Erdogan's party faces the need for difficult reforms.