Turkey voting in critical snap parliamentary elections

(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) urks voted on November 1 in the country’s second parliamentary elections in five months casting ballots as the mainly Muslim country confronts security concerns a faltering economy and deepening political sectarian and ethnic divisions.

The snap elections were called after a June 7 poll resulted in a hung parliament and left the nation without a government after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its majority dealing a blow to the divisive leader’s ambitions to expand his powers through constitutional reforms.

Opinion polls predict similar results this time and a failure by the Islamic-rooted AKP to secure a majority could force the party into a powersharing deal with the secular Republican People's Party (CHP) which is predicted to finish second.

The election is set against the backdrop of sectarian violence and the fallout from the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Violence between government forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) intensified earlier this year in southeastern Turkey and the country was rocked by twin suicide bombings that killed more than 100 people at an October 10 peace rally in Ankara.

Erdogan has said that Syrian intelligence and Kurdish activists worked together with the extremist Islamic State (IS) group and the government has responded by stepping up its operations against suspected IS militants.

Turkey has also been alarmed by Kurdish forces' territorial gains in Syria which it fears could stoke separatism among its own Kurdish minority. And it is struggling to handle the more than 2 million refugees who have streamed across the border from Syria to flee the civil war there.

Turkey’s $800 billion economy has also struggled with growth last year slowing to below 3 percent and its currency the lira falling more than 20 percent against the U.S. dollar so far this year.

Erdogan has described the election as a chance to return to single-party rule by the AKP which he says would mean stability.

"This election will be for continuity of stability and trust" he said after praying at a new Istanbul mosque on October 31. He vowed to respect the results.

Erdogan told reporters at an October 29 reception that “Turkey has no time to lose” and that the election represents “a breaking point for our country.”

“If our people give a single party a chance then stability will continue” Reuters quoted him as saying.

"On the morning of November 2 everyone together will undoubtedly show respect and stand up for the result.... After that hopefully the new Turkey won't relive the trouble we have experienced in the last five months" Erdogan added.

Erdogan’s opponents have accused him of becoming increasingly authoritarian while Western governments have criticized him for cracking down on media freedoms -- charges he rejects.

Ahead of the November 1 vote Turkish police acting in connection with a money-laundering investigation this week raided the offices of two television stations linked to a Turkish cleric who lives in exile the United States.

Authorities took the two channels which are seen as critical of Erdogan off the air drawing condemnation from the political opposition European officials and major international media.

“We share widespread concerns that recent events are part of a concerted campaign to silence any opposition or criticism of the government in the run-up to the election” editors at some 50 international media organizations said in a letter.

Nils Muiznieks the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights warned that the actions against the media group sends a “very chilling message to the Turkish public and journalists less than a week before the election.”

The three major opposition parties on the ballot in the November 1 election have criticized the attack on the television stations as well.

In addition to the AKP and the CHP the other two parties seen as capable of winning seats in the 550-seat parliament are the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

The HDP captured 80 seats in in the June parliamentary election a landmark result for Kurds in Turkey that helped deprive Erdogan’s ruling AKP of the majority needed to form a single-party government.