Turkey goes to the polls in critical vote amid security fears

Just five months after they last voted, Turks are going to the ballot box once again against a backdrop of growing security fears and deepening political division. The previous vote in June left no party with an overall majority, and efforts to form a coalition failed, leading Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to call fresh elections. The once-dominant AK party (AKP), which Erdogan formed, is now fighting to regain the single-party majority it had enjoyed for more than a decade. Around 385,000 police and gendarmes have been mobilised nationwide, with security particularly high in the restive Kurdish majority southeast, where armoured vehicles and police were seen outside polling stations.

There’s terrorism, there’s chaos, and now there’s the possibility of coalition - we’re fed up with this. The best option is President Erdogan, and single-party rule.

Barber Ismail Dogan told Sky News the recent instability had left him in little doubt of the urgent need for the AKP to regain its majority

It was lost largely as a result of the the emergence of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) - once a primarily Kurdish political group, but now garnering support from across the political spectrum with its message of secular liberalism seen as an alternative to what is perceived as the increasingly authoritarian, nationalist direction being taken by the AKP. When the HDP passed the 10% electoral threshold to become the fourth party in parliament in June, it dashed President Erdogan’s hopes of the AKP being able to force through constitutional changes that would have seen a raft of executive powers transferred to his office. If no single party receives an outright majority in this latest vote, they will have 45 days to try and form a coalition government.

They are accusing us of being the same as the PKK, they are trying to persuade people not to support us, but it’s not true. HDP is not a party just for Kurds, but for all social democrats.

An unemployed Kurdish supporter told Sky News he feared the renewed violence would be used to discredit the party

Politics turkey election