(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Turkey's long-dominant Justice and Development Party (AKP) was on track for a parliamentary majority on Sunday, according to first results from one of the country's most critical elections in years.
The party founded by strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had won 51.8 percent of the vote with 52 percent of the ballot boxes counted, CNN-Turk television reported.
Opinion polls had predicted a replay of the June election when the AKP won just 40 percent of the vote, finding itself stripped of its parliamentary majority for the first time in 13 years.
Turks voted in large numbers, with the country deeply polarised in the face of surging Kurdish and Islamic violence and mounting concerns about democracy and the faltering economy.
"Whatever scenario materialises, the challenges facing Turkey are growing by the day," said a report by the Brookings Institution think-tank.
It highlighted the problems of the Kurdish crisis, the parlous state of the economy and the conflict in neighbouring Syria.
The political landscape has changed dramatically in Turkey since June, with the country even more divided on ethnic and sectarian lines.
Security concerns
Many Turks are fearful of a return to all-out war with outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels after fresh violence shattered a 2013 truce in July, just a month after a pro-Kurdish party won seats in parliament for the first time and denied Erdogan's AKP a majority.
The threat of further jihadist violence also overshadowed the poll after a string of attacks blamed on the Islamic State group, including twin suicide bombings on an Ankara peace rally last month that killed 102 people - the bloodiest in Turkey's modern history.
Around 385,000 police and gendarmes were mobilised nationwide, with security particularly high in the restive Kurdish-majority southeast, where armoured vehicles and police were seen outside polling stations.
There were no major incidents although media reports said police fired tear gas on rivals from the AKP and the pro-Kurdish People's Republican Party (HDP) brawling in a town near Istanbul.
Fifty-four million people were registered to vote, and there were queues at many polling stations visited by AFP.
Turkey's 'big master'
The outcome is likely to determine the future of Erdogan - the divisive "big master" who has dominated Turkey's political scene for more than a decade but is seen as increasingly autocratic.
The June result stymied his ambition to expand his role into a powerful US-style executive presidency that opponents fear would mean fewer checks and balances in what was once regarded as a model Muslim democracy.
He had vowed to respect Sunday's result, saying: "Turkey has made great strides on the path to democracy and that will be bolstered once more in today's election."
However, a string of high-profile raids against media groups deemed hostile to Erdogan and the jailing of critical journalists have set alarm bells ringing about the state of democracy in a country that has long aspired to join the European Union (EU).
"We need a change of direction so we can breathe again. Turkey has become ungovernable," said Ibrahim Yener, 34, as he cast his ballot in Ankara.
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