ABSTRACT
In the 12 June 2011 elections in Turkey, the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party) claimed its third consecutive victory at the ballot box, winning a comfortable majority that once again made it possible to form a single-party government. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the head of the AKP, is the first political leader in the history of Turkish elections to increase the percentage of votes won by his party in three consecutive general elections. In the elections, the AKP received 49.83 per cent of the votes, giving them 326 seats. However, this overwhelming victory at the polls did not translate into the two-thirds majority needed to unilaterally adopt a Turkish constitution (which would require 367 seats) or even the 330 seats that would allow the party–after agreement in the Parliament on procedures for adoption and the president’s approval–to call a referendum to endorse the change.
