2023 Turkish parliamentary election

2023 Turkish parliamentary election

14 May 2023
All 600 seats in the Grand National Assembly 301 seats needed for a majority
Turnout	87.05% ( 0.83 pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu Çiğdem Kılıçgün Uçar İbrahim Akın Party AK Party CHP YSGP Alliance People Nation Labour & Freedom Last election 42.56%, 295 seats 22.65%, 146 seats 11.70%, 65 seats Seats won 268 169 61 Seat change 27 23 4 Popular vote 19,387,412 13,791,299 4,803,774 Percentage 35.61% 25.33% 8.82% Swing 6.95pp 2.68pp 2.88pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Leader Devlet Bahçeli Meral Akşener Fatih Erbakan Party MHP İYİ YRP Alliance People Nation People Last election 11.10%, 49 seats 9.96%, 43 seats – Seats won 50 43 5 Seat change 1 New Popular vote 5,484,515 5,272,482 1,529,119 Percentage 10.07% 9.69% 2.81% Swing 1.03pp 0.27pp New   Seventh party   Leader Erkan Baş Party TİP Alliance Labour & Freedom Last election – Seats won 4 Seat change New Popular vote 940,230 Percentage 1.73% Swing New
Speaker of the Assembly before election Mustafa Şentop AKP Elected Speaker of the Assembly Numan Kurtulmuş AKP

Parliamentary elections were held in Turkey on 14 May 2023, alongside presidential elections, to elect all 600 members of the Grand National Assembly. The incoming members formed the 28th Parliament of Turkey. The elections had originally been scheduled to take place on June 18, but the government moved them forward by a month to avoid coinciding with the university exams, the Hajj pilgrimage and the start of the summer holidays. Prior to the election, the electoral threshold for a party to enter parliament was lowered from 10% to 7% by the ruling party.

The elections were contested by a total of 24 political parties. Some parties decided to participate in the elections as part of an electoral alliance, many of which were formed for the previous 2018 election and had been expanded since. The governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) of incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan lead the People's Alliance, which also included the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), the Great Union Party (BBP) and the New Welfare Party (YRP). The largest opposition alliance was headed by the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) and included five other parties. These included the Good Party (İYİ), the Felicity Party (SP), the Democrat Party (DP) and two other parties headed by former senior AKP politicians, namely the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) of former economy minister Ali Babacan and the Future Party (GP) of former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) opted to run on the lists of the Party of Greens and the Left Future (YSGP) in light of a potential closure case. The YSGP itself headed the left-wing Labour and Freedom Alliance along with the Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP). Two smaller alliances, the Ancestral Alliance of presidential candidate Sinan Oğan and the Union of Socialist Forces, also participated in the elections for the first time.

The People's Alliance retained its majority in the parliament with 323 MPs. The AKP, led by incumbent president Erdoğan, won the highest percentage of the vote with 36%, though it suffered its worst result since 2002. MHP, the second largest party of the People's Alliance, outperformed expectations and won 10.1% of the votes. The alliance overall won just under 50% of the vote. The Nation Alliance only marginally improved on its 2018 vote, winning a combined 34% and 212 MPs. The Labour and Freedom Alliance suffered a decline in their vote, winning just over 10% and 66 seats. No other electoral alliance won seats. The election resulted in seven parties entering the parliament, which is a record in Turkish politics.

Many smaller parties ran on the lists of larger ones to avoid splitting the vote. Prior to the election, the CHP caused controversy by fielding 77 DEVA, Felicity Party, Future Party, and Democrat Party candidates on its own lists, of which 39 (14 DEVA, 10 Felicity, 10 Future, 3 Democrats, 1 IYI, and 1 Party for Change in Turkey) were elected — a significantly higher proportion than these parties' national share of support. These included former AKP ministers such as Sadullah Ergin (running as a DEVA candidate), who was widely criticised for his role as Justice Minister in the Ergenekon conspiracy against the Turkish Armed Forces. The AKP, meanwhile, was criticised for fielding members of the Free Cause Party (HÜDA PAR), a party known for its ties to the Kurdish Hezbollah, as candidates.

Electoral system

The 600 members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey will be elected by party-list proportional representation in 87 electoral districts, by the D'Hondt method. For the purpose of legislative elections, 77 of Turkey's 81 provinces serve as single districts. Due to their large populations, the provinces of Bursa and İzmir are divided into two districts, while the provinces of Ankara and Istanbul are each divided into three.

According to the Constitution of Turkey, any amendment to the election law can only apply a year after it comes into effect.

Lowering of the electoral threshold

At the initiative of the ruling AKP and its main political ally MHP, the national electoral threshold for a party to enter parliament was lowered from 10% to 7%. This was the first lowering of the threshold since it was introduced by the military junta following the 1980 Turkish coup d'état.

There is no threshold for independent candidates. Political parties can also opt to contest the election in a political alliance with other parties, removing the 7% requirement as long as the alliance as a whole wins more than 7% of the vote in total.

Other amendments to the election law includes the distribution of seats. Previously, parliamentary seats were distributed based on the vote share of each election alliance in any given district. Now, the seats are distributed based solely on the vote share of each political party in that district. If applied to the previous elections, the results would have been slightly more in line with the preferences of the voters on local level. For example, one Erzurum seat from IYI (4th largest party in Erzurum) would have gone to HDP (3rd largest party in Erzurum) and one Elazığ seat from CHP (3rd largest party in Elazığ) to MHP (2nd largest party in Elazığ).

Electoral districts

Main article: Electoral districts of Turkey

Turkey is split into 87 electoral districts, which elect a certain number of members to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The Assembly has a total of 600 seats, with each electoral district allocated a certain number of MPs in proportion to their population. The Supreme Electoral Council of Turkey conducts population reviews of each district before the election and can increase or decrease a district's number of seats according to their electorate.

In all but four cases, electoral districts share the same name and borders as the 81 provinces, with the exceptions being Ankara, Bursa, İzmir and Istanbul. Provinces electing between 19 and 36 MPs are split into two electoral districts, while any province electing above 36 MPs is divided into three. As the country's most populous provinces, Bursa and İzmir are divided into two subdistricts while Ankara and Istanbul are divided into three. The distribution of elected MPs per electoral district is shown below.

District MPs Adana 15 Adıyaman 5 Afyonkarahisar 6 Ağrı 4 Aksaray 4 Amasya 3 Ankara 36 Ankara (I) 13 Ankara (II) 11 Ankara (III) 12 Antalya 17 Ardahan 2 Artvin 2 Aydın 8 Balıkesir 9 Bartın 2 Batman 5 Bayburt 1 Bilecik 2 Bingöl 3 Bitlis 3

District MPs Bolu 3 Burdur 3 Bursa 20 Bursa (I) 10 Bursa (II) 10 Çanakkale 4 Çankırı 2 Çorum 4 Denizli 7 Diyarbakır 12 Düzce 3 Edirne 4 Elazığ 5 Erzincan 2 Erzurum 6 Eskişehir 6 Gaziantep 14 Giresun 4 Gümüşhane 2 Hakkâri 3 Hatay 11

District MPs Iğdır 2 Isparta 4 Istanbul 98 Istanbul (I) 35 Istanbul (II) 27 Istanbul (III) 36 İzmir 28 İzmir (I) 14 İzmir (II) 14 Kahramanmaraş 8 Kars 3 Kastamonu 3 Karabük 3 Karaman 3 Kayseri 10 Kilis 2 Kırklareli 3 Kırıkkale 3 Kırşehir 2 Kocaeli 14 Konya 15

District MPs Kütahya 5 Malatya 6 Manisa 10 Mardin 6 Mersin 13 Muğla 7 Muş 3 Nevşehir 3 Niğde 3 Ordu 6 Osmaniye 4 Rize 3 Sakarya 8 Samsun 9 Siirt 3 Sinop 2 Sivas 5 Şanlıurfa 14 Şırnak 4 Tekirdağ 8 Tokat 5

District MPs Trabzon 6 Tunceli 1 Uşak 3 Van 8 Yalova 3 Yozgat 4 Zonguldak 5 Total 600

Parties

For political parties to achieve (nationwide) ballot access, they must be eligible to meet the requirements set by Law no. 298 on "Basic Provisions on Elections and Electoral Registers".

The Green Party, founded in September 2020, has been barred from the election by the Interior Ministry despite a court ruling against the ministry. As of 2022 the establishment of the Humanity and Freedom Party had been awaiting the Constitutional Court for four years after the completion of the legal process.

On 11 March 2023, the Supreme Election Council confirmed that 36 parties were eligible to run in the elections.

Contesting parties

The table below shows the places of alliances, parties, and independent candidates in the order they appear on the ballot paper. However, the ballot paper is not the same in every electoral district as some parties do not participate in every electoral district or are on another party's list.

Other eligible parties

The below table shows the remaining parties that were eligible to contest the election but decided run on the lists of other parties or decided not to field candidates.

Party			Chairperson	Main ideology	Supporting alliance	Course of action
	DEVA	Democracy and Progress Party	Ali Babacan	Liberal conservatism	Nation Alliance	YContesting from list of Republican People's Party
	DSP	Democratic Left Party (Turkey)	Önder Aksakal	Social democracy	People's Alliance	YContesting from list of Justice and Development Party
	DP	Democrat Party	Gültekin Uysal	Liberal conservatism	Nation Alliance	YContesting from list of Republican People's Party
	SAADET	Felicity Party	Temel Karamollaoğlu	Millî Görüş	Nation Alliance	YContesting from list of Republican People's Party
	HÜDA PAR	Free Cause Party	Zekeriya Yapıcıoğlu	Kurdish Islamism	People's Alliance	YContesting from list of Justice and Development Party
	GELECEK PARTİSİ	Future Party	Ahmet Davutoğlu	Conservatism	Nation Alliance	YContesting from list of Republican People's Party
	BÜYÜK TÜRKİYE	Great Turkey Party	Hüseyin Durmaz	Turkish nationalism	People's Alliance	NThe party withdrew to support People's Alliance
	BTP	Independent Turkey Party	Hüseyin Baş	Civic nationalism	Nation Alliance	NThe party withdrew to support Nation Alliance
	EMEK	Labour Party	Ercüment Akdeniz	Marxism–Leninism	Labour and Freedom Alliance	YContesting from list of Party of Greens and the Left Future
	YTP	New Turkey Party	Engin Yılmaz	Social conservatism	—	—
	TDP	Party for Change in Turkey	Mustafa Sarıgül	Social democracy	Nation Alliance	YContesting from list of Republican People's Party
	HDP	Peoples' Democratic Party	Mithat Sancar & Pervin Buldan	Minority rights	Labour and Freedom Alliance	YContesting from list of Party of Greens and the Left Future

List of alliances

Alliance		Members		Seats before	Seats after
1	People's Alliance		Justice and Development Party (AK PARTİ)	336 / 600	323 / 600
			Nationalist Movement Party (MHP)
			Great Unity Party (BÜYÜK BİRLİK)
			New Welfare Party (YENİDEN REFAH)
2	Nation Alliance		Republican People's Party (CHP)	175 / 600	212 / 600
			Good Party (İYİ PARTİ)
			Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA PARTİSİ)
			Future Party (GELECEK PARTİSİ)
			Felicity Party (SAADET)
			Democrat Party (DP)
3	Labour and Freedom Alliance		Party of Greens and the Left Future (YEŞİL SOL PARTİ)	60 / 600	65 / 600
			Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP)
			Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP)
			Labour Party (EMEP)
			Labourist Movement Party (LHP)
			Social Freedom Party (TÖP)
			Labor Democracy Party (İDP)
4	Ancestral Alliance		Victory Party (—)	1 / 600	0 / 600
			Justice Party (AP)
			My Country Party (ÜLKEM)
			Turkey Alliance Party (—)
5	Union of Socialist Forces		Left Party (SOL PARTİ)	0 / 600	0 / 600
			Communist Party (TKP)
			Communist Movement (TKH)
			Revolution Movement (—)

Opinion polls

Main article: Opinion polling for the 2023 Turkish parliamentary election

Conduct

Political violence

During the election campaign, several occurrences that took place have been labelled as political violence. On 31 March 2023, the Istanbul headquarters of the Good Party was targeted in a shooting attack. No one was harmed in the shooting. Akşener criticised Erdoğan after the attack by saying "A political party cannot be intimidated one and a half months before an election. We are not afraid. I fear nothing but God. Mr. Recep (Erdoğan), I am not afraid of you. But you are the president and you are responsible for every citizen in this country." The attackers were emboldened by the president's harsh words against the opposition, Akşener said. Upon investigation, it became clear that a nighttime security guard had fired his gun at burglars – only to hit the building by mistake with two stray bullets. President Erdoğan said in response to Akşener "The truth has come out, are you now going to apologize to me?"

Recent attacks on other parties have raised issues of political polarisation and security in the country. On 1 May, a group of unidentified individuals armed with guns and sticks assaulted HUDAPAR youth members in Mersin. HUDAPAR was hosting an election campaign stand to help their electoral ally the AK Party. The HDP denied links to the attack, and urged its supporters to refrain against provocations.

Results

Main article: 28th Parliament of Turkey

Party or alliance				Votes	%	Seats	+/–
	People's Alliance		Justice and Development Party	19,187,170	35.56	268	–27
			Nationalist Movement Party	5,421,800	10.05	50	+1
			New Welfare Party	1,510,745	2.80	5	New
			Great Unity Party	524,881	0.97	0	–1
		Total		26,935,107	49.91	323	–21
	Nation Alliance		Republican People's Party	13,675,902	25.34	169	+23
			Good Party	5,225,196	9.68	43	0
		Total		19,078,164	35.35	212	+23
	Labour and Freedom Alliance		Party of Greens and the Left Future	4,800,607	8.90	61	–4
			Workers' Party of Turkey	954,547	1.77	4	+2
		Total		5,759,958	10.67	65	–2
	Ancestral Alliance		Victory Party	1,211,917	2.25	0	New
			Justice Party	108,713	0.20	0	0
		Total		1,325,635	2.46	0	New
	Homeland Party			502,669	0.93	0	New
	Union of Socialist Forces		Left Party	76,801	0.14	0	0
			Communist Party of Turkey	62,826	0.12	0	0
			Communist Movement of Turkey	17,222	0.03	0	0
		Total		159,277	0.30	0	New
	Young Party			112,972	0.21	0	0
	Motherland Party			66,102	0.12	0	0
	Patriotic Party			52,720	0.10	0	0
	Nation Party			52,314	0.10	0	0
	Rights and Freedoms Party			42,509	0.08	0	0
	Justice Unity Party			41,207	0.08	0	New
	People's Liberation Party			31,831	0.06	0	0
	Power Union Party			26,359	0.05	0	New
	National Road Party			17,758	0.03	0	New
	Innovation Party			11,171	0.02	0	New
	Independents			226,831	0.42	0	0
Total				53,962,770	100.00	600	0
Valid votes				53,962,770	97.48
Invalid/blank votes				1,393,311	2.52
Total votes				55,356,081	100.00
Registered voters/turnout				64,145,504	87.05
Source: YSK