ANKARA, June 12, 2011 (AFP) Turkey's ruling Islamist-rooted party clinched a record landslide in Sunday's parliamentary polls but was short of the two-thirds majority it needs to amend the constitution, near-complete results showed.
With 99 percent of the votes counted, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) was leading with 50 percent of the vote for a third straight win, according to results on television channels.
It was the party's highest electoral score since it came to power in 2002 but appeared to fall just short of the 367-seat majority in the 550-member parliament it was seeking to unilaterally amend the constitution, the legacy of a 1980 military coup.
An exultant Erdogan addressed thousands of cheering supporters from the balcony of party headquarters in Ankara, saying: "Today, for yet another time, democracy and the national will have prevailed.
"Gaza, Palestine and Jerusalem have also won," said the leader, whose self-professed mission of defending "the oppressed", flavoured with a vision of Islamic fraternity, has crossed borders and made him a hero on Arab streets.
The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) was in second place with 25.9 percent followed by the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), which bagged 13 percent of the ballot.
Thousands of ecstatic supporters gathered outside AKP offices in Ankara, dancing and singing, as the refrain of the party's election song "Come on, once more!" blared from loudspeakers.
"Turkey is proud of you," they chanted, referring to Erdogan.
More than 50 million people were eligible to vote, out of a population of some 73 million.
The AKP owes its enduring popularity mostly to economic success and improved public services following years of financial instability that haunted Turkey under shaky coalition governments in the past.
Under the AKP, the economy grew by 8.9 percent in 2010, outpacing global recovery, and per capita income has doubled to $10,079.
His economic credits aside, Erdogan -- once the driving force of EU-sought reforms -- has come under fire for autocratic tendencies and growing intolerance of criticism.
With dozens of journalists in jail, the opposition is alarmed also over creeping restrictions on the Internet and an unprecedented outbreak of compromising wiretaps and videos of opposition figures circulating online.
Sex tapes forced 10 top MHP members to quit the election race, following a similar scandal last year that saw the veteran CHP leader resign.
Led by a popular new chairman, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the secularist centre-left CHP built its election campaign on pledges of democratic reform, arguing the AKP is turning Turkey into a "police state".
"Enough is enough. We are fed up with intimidation. I want a country where I can live without fear," Meryem, a teacher in her 40s, said in Ankara's upscale district of Cankaya after casting a vote for the CHP.
Erdogan has promised a more liberal constitution but has refused to specify what the overhaul would entail, fanning speculation with his advocacy of a presidential system for Turkey -- presumably with himself at the helm.
The AKP needs at least 330 seats to amend the constitution without support from other parties and put it to a referendum.
Kurdish-backed candidates running as independents to circumvent the 10-percent national threshold were expected to win up to 35 seats, according to the partial results.
Violence marred voting in Ankara, where opposition supporters attacked AKP members over an alleged attempt to sneak fake ballots papers into a polling station, Anatolia news agency reported.
Police fired shots in the air to end the melee and put the AKP members on a bus as enraged opposition supporters pelted the vehicle with stones, Anatolia said, adding that 14 people were detained.
In the mainly Kurdish city of Batman, police detained another 34 people on charges they threatened voters to support nationalist Kurdish candidates.
