Turkey election: Victorious Erdogan pledges 'consensus'

[Gerald]

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has promised to build consensus with opposition parties, after securing a third term in office.

Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won about 50% of the vote in Sunday's poll.

That translates to about 325 seats - a majority, but not enough to make unilateral constitutional changes.

Mr Erdogan had widely been expected to win despite being accused by some of an authoritarian style of leadership.

With almost all of the ballots counted, local media said that the AKP had secured about 325 of the 550 seats in parliament.

That is short of the "super majority" of 367 that would have enabled the party to push through constitutional changes on its own; or the 330 the party would have needed to put its own proposals directly to a public referendum.

Many Turks accept the need to modernise the constitution, which was written three decades ago following a military coup, says the BBC's Jonathan Head in Istanbul.

But there was concern that with a super-majority, the prime minister might reject consensus and write a constitution that helped cement his party's grip on power. Analysts say he may be planning to put more powers in the hands of the presidency - and eyeing up the post for himself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13744972


Note: 13 June 2011 Last updated at 08:25 GMT