Insight Turkey 2015 - Fall 2015 (Vol. 17, No. 4)

Last year was the year of elections in Turkey with two parliamentary elections and months-long electoral campaigns that dominated the political agenda of the country. The parliamentary elections of June 7, 2015 brought an end to the AK Party’s 12-year long era of parliamentary majority and single-party government in Turkey. Nevertheless, the endeavors to form a coalition government could not be concluded successfully and another election appeared on the horizon. The country was ruled by an AK Party-led interim government and the elections were repeated five months later on November 1, 2015. While close in time, the two elections were quite distant with regard to the political contexts in which they were carried out, and in their respective results. The November elections witnessed a comeback for the AK Party, which increased its votes by over 9 points with the addition of five million new votes in the ballot box.