Kurds celebrate as ruling party loses majority in Turkish elections

In a stunning rebuke of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ambitions to expand his powers, Turkish voters stripped his party of its simple majority in parliament. 

With 99.9 percent of the vote counted, Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party, (AKP), had the support of around 41 percent of voters, state-run TRT television said. According to projections, that would give it some 258 seats — 18 below the minimum needed to keep its majority.

The main secular opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) is expected to secure 132 seats and the Nationalist Movement Party is projected to get 81.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) picked up about 13 percent of the vote and 79 seats, breaking the 10 percent threshold required for a party to take up its seats and raising hopes in the country that it will be able to advance a peace process between the Turkish state and Kurdish armed group PKK, which has been battling the country's armed forces for decades. The election results sparked celebrations early Monday morning in the largely ethnic Kurdish city of Diyarbakir.

Erdogan's party received around 49 percent of the vote in the general elections in 2011.

The setback for AKP likely puts an end, for the time being, to Erdogan's hopes of passing constitutional changes that would have increased the powers of Turkey’s president.

Instead, AKP has been left unable to govern alone for the first time since it came to power in 2002. The party appeared to suffer from a sputtering economy and frustrations with the peace process to end decades of fighting with Kurdish insurgents.

Now Erdogan’s party faces potentially weeks of difficult coalition negotiations with reluctant opposition parties as it tries to form a stable government, and the possibility of another early election because once the final official results are confirmed there is a 45-day period in which a new government needs to be formed, or new elections are called.

The result is also a bitter blow to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, whose political prospects are uncertain after leading his party to such a disappointing result. AKP will now have to seek a coalition partner to stay in power, with the nationalist MHP the most likely candidate.

Late Sunday, Davutoglu declared victory in the election, but didn't acknowledge his party had lost its majority.

For jubilant Kurds, who flooded the streets of the southeastern city of Diyarbakir setting off fireworks and waving flags, there was plenty to celebrate after a run-up to the election marked by violence.

HDP is the first party with Kurdish origins to win seats in parliament. Previously, Kurdish MPs have joined the legislature as independents, and Erdogan had accused the HDP of being a front for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which took up arms in 1984 in an insurgency that killed 40,000 people.

But on Sunday, with initial results putting it on around 13 percent, HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtas ruled out a coalition with the AKP and said the election outcome had put an end to talk of the stronger presidential powers championed by Erdogan.

"The discussion of an executive presidency and dictatorship have come to an end in Turkey," he told a news conference in Istanbul, describing the outcome as a victory "for those who want a pluralist and civil new constitution."

HDP seemed to have made considerable gains in southeast Turkey, suggesting that religious Kurds had turned away from AKP in favor of HDP. AKP also appeared to have lost votes in Sanliurfa and Gaziantep where there are large numbers of Syrian refugees.

"The election results are a big success for the HDP as it has moved from a Kurdish-oriented party to a party that addresses the whole Turkey. It got votes from liberal voters who previously voted for the AK Party and CHP who wanted to block Erdogan and AK Party," said Deniz Ulke Aribogan, a professor of political science from Istanbul Bilgi University.

"The results show that Turkish citizens want Erdogan to act in line with his position as a neutral president. They don't want to see him rallying as if he is the leader of the AK Party."

In an indication of how Erdogan's fortunes have fallen, he began the campaign asking voters for 400 of the total 550 seats in the Grand National Assembly, a massive majority well above the 330 seats needed to call for a national referendum to change the constitution.

Erdogan himself was not on the ballot. Still, the election was effectively a vote on whether to endow his office with powers that would significantly change Turkey's democracy and prolong his reign as the country's most powerful politician.

"Erdogan turned the election into a referendum on his personal ambitions," said Fadi Hakura, a Turkey specialist at London-based Chatham House. "These elections have put his plans on the back burner for a very long time."

Al Jazeera with wire services