Tense Turkey returns to polls

Turks are going to the polls in parliamentary elections for the second time in five months.

The AK Party, formed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, failed to retain its majority in June’s poll.

Attempts to form a coalition government since then have proved unsuccessful.

Security is the key issue in the election after weeks of violence involving Kurdish militants and bomb attacks blamed on the Islamic State (IS) group.

Erdogan has promised a return to stability if his party wins a majority.

“This election will be for continuity of stability and trust,” he said after praying at a new mosque in Istanbul on Saturday. He vowed to respect the result.

But his opponents warn that an outright victory would fuel what they see as his increasingly authoritarian tendencies.

If the AK Party again fails to secure a single-party majority in the 550-seat parliament, it may be forced back to the negotiating table with either the country’s main secularist CHP opposition or the nationalist MHP, reports the BBC.

At June’s election, Erdogan sought a two-thirds majority to turn Turkey into a presidential republic, but his Islamist-rooted AK Party fell short.

The pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) upset his ambitions by crossing the 10% threshold, securing seats in parliament for the first time.