Members of the new Turkish parliament take the constitutional oath in the presence of the President
The new Turkish parliament convened for the first time, Friday, after the elections held on May 14, and the new deputies took the constitutional oath.
The Justice and Development Party, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his partners, constitutes the largest parliamentary bloc.
After losing 27 seats, the AKP now holds 268 seats, and four of its deputies are members of the Kurdish Islamist Huda Bar party, which entered parliament for the first time through the AKP’s list.
Together with the New Welfare Party YRP and the Nationalist Movement Party MHP, Erdoğan supporters occupy 323 seats out of 600 seats, and therefore don’t have the two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution.
The head of the National Movement Party, Devlet Bahçeli, who is allied with the ruling party, assumed the presidency of Parliament temporarily, as the oldest representative.
“I feel very proud to take over the secretariat of Parliament, which was reconstituted in the general elections within a legal framework,” said Bahçeli.
In addition to the Turkish President, the President of the Constitutional Court, the President of the Supreme Court, the President of the Supreme Election Commission, and representatives of foreign missions attended the opening ceremony of Parliament.
The Turkish official Anadolu news agency stated that the swearing in of the new deputies will take about 10 hours, after which the work of the 28th parliament in the history of the Turkish Republic will officially begin.
According to the results of the parliamentary elections that were held with the first round of the presidential elections on May 14, the public coalition consisting of the “Justice and Development”, “National Movement” and “New Welfare” parties won 323 seats out of the 600 seats in Parliament.
The opposition People’s Alliance, made up of the “Republican People”, “Good”, “Happiness”, “Future”, “Progress and Democracy” and “Democratic” parties, won 212 seats in total.
As for the Labor and Freedoms Alliance, consisting of the “Green Left” parties, in whose name members of the “Democratic Peoples” Party of Kurdish background, and the “Workers’ Party” nominated, it won 65 seats.
