Turkey’s New Parliament: More Parties and More Women

Members of Turkey's parliament meet at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, TBMM, in Ankara, 2 January 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/STR

The 600-seat parliament will have 16 political parties thanks to the political alliance system that was introduced by the executive presidential system in 2018.

The People's Alliance of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a comfortable majority in parliament with 323 lawmakers, according to first official results.

His ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, has the highest number of deputies, with 263. HUDAPAR, a party with alleged ties to the Turkish branch of Hezbollah, and the Democratic Left Party also entered parliament under the AKP lists, with four and one lawmakers respectively.

AKP's far-right ally, the Nationalist Movement Party, MHP, has 50 lawmakers. Other AKP allies in the New Welfare Party have five seats.

The Nation Alliance of Erdogan's rival, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, faced disappointment in the parliamentary election as well as in the presidential race, where he finished round one with 44.5 per cent of the vote, behind Erdogan, who won 49.5 per cent.

Kilicdaroglu's social democratic Republican People's Party has 130 lawmakers and its right-wing ally, the Good Party, has 44.

The liberal DEVA party, the political Islamist Future Party, the conservative Felicity Party and the centrist Democratic Party, which entered the elections under the banner of the CHP, now have 14, 10, 10 and three seats respectively.

The socialist Labour and Freedom Alliance, led by the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, HDP, which entered the elections under the Green Left Party, has 65 lawmakers.

The Green Left Party has 58 lawmakers and its smaller left-wing allies, the Labour Party, EMEP,...