Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan slid into electoral victory on Monday, securing what seems to be 53 percent of the popular vote in an election that saw an impressive 87 percent voter turnout. Though the final tally won’t be concluded until Friday, 99 percent of the votes have already been counted. Erdogan’s AK Party also emerged victorious in the parliamentary elections. The party won 42.5 percent of the votes in the parliamentary polls. Preliminary results indicate that the AK Party and its strategic ally, the MHP Party, will receive 343 seats out of Turkey’s 600-seat parliament. The AK Party is likely to get 293 seats and MHP is likely to get 50 seats. The main opposition party, the pro-Kurdish HDP 67 is predicted to get 146 seats and the nationalist Iyi Party is expected to come away with 44 parliamentary seats.
Turkish stock markets and the country’s troubled lira rallied on the news of Erdogan’s win, though analysts question whether the results-driven rally will be short lived since the country is struggling with high inflation and is highly dependent on other countries. Erdogan has dubbed himself the “enemy of interest rates” and has thwarted all efforts by the Turkish central bank to tighten fiscal policy.
In his victory speech, Erdogan confirmed his commitment to “fight terroristic organizations” and to increase the “international prestige” of Turkey. He also committed to fighting to “make Syrian grounds freer.”
A referendum in Turkey last year assigned significant power to the winner of this presidential election. Though there were allegations of fraud in the referendum, the result is that Erdogan is set to assume complete control of the cabinet and to issue decrees with the force of law. In addition, Erdogan will have the power to appoint senior judges and other political officials. Detractors are concerned that Erdogan exited the election with too much power which poses a threat to the democracy of the country. To date, Erdogan has jailed 160,000 people, many of who have been vocal opponents of his leadership. Erdogan has said that his increased power will be used to focus on solving Turkey’s economic troubles and to defeating Kurdish rebels.
The Turkish lira was trading down 1.88 percent in Turkey’s morning on Monday, at 4.5895 against the U.S. dollar as of 11:07 GMT + 3.