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Europe
Turkey re-elects governing party
2007-07-23
Strong showing by Erdogan's backers.
More:
With more than half the votes counted, two secularist parties crossed the 10 percent threshold to enter parliament -- the leftist CHP on around 18 percent and the ultra-nationalist MHP on 16. Polls closed an hour earlier in eastern Turkey where the Republican PeopleÂ’s Party (CHP) and far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) are relatively weak, so the early figures might not be entirely representative of the final results.

If both the CHP and MHP clear the 10 percent hurdle the AK Party might end up with fewer seats than in the outgoing assembly, despite winning a much bigger share of the vote than in 2002, when the MHP failed to get into parliament. The respected Konda polling agency said the partial results would give the AK Party 334 seats -- down from 352 before -- the CHP would gain 94 and the MHP 88 seats.

Electoral commission officials estimated turnout at around 80 percent in the large Muslim country of 74 million people.
Posted by:lotp

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