Turnout: 86.22%
About this election
Turkey elected the first Grand National Assembly of the executive-presidential era on 24 June 2018, on the same day as the presidential vote. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) finished first with 42.56% and 295 seats but, for the first time, fell short of a majority on its own. Its ally the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) took 11.10% and 49 seats, so the governing People's Alliance held 344 of the 600 seats. The Republican People's Party (CHP) won 22.65% and 146, the pro-Kurdish HDP 11.70% and 67, and the new Good Party (İYİ) 9.96% and 43. Turnout was 86.22%.
This was the first parliamentary election under the system created by the 2017 referendum. The assembly was enlarged from 550 to 600 seats and its term aligned with the presidency at five years, with both elected on the same day. Under the new constitution parliament lost its power to form or dismiss the government — now the president's prerogative — but retained legislative and budgetary functions and oversight, making control of the chamber still highly consequential.
Members were elected by D'Hondt proportional representation in provincial constituencies. A 2018 law formalised electoral alliances, allowing parties to pool their votes against the 10% national threshold: a party below 10% could still win seats if its alliance as a whole cleared the bar. This let the MHP and the small parties survive, and it reshaped the contest into a battle between the AKP–MHP People's Alliance and the CHP–İYİ–Felicity Nation Alliance, with the HDP standing apart.
The AKP remained the dominant party but newly dependent on the MHP for its majority. The CHP led the opposition; the İYİ Party of Meral Akşener made a strong debut as a nationalist alternative; and the HDP again cleared the threshold despite its leaders' imprisonment.
Held alongside the presidential election and under the post-coup state of emergency, the parliamentary contest was overshadowed by the presidential race but carried high stakes of its own: whether Erdoğan, if re-elected, would also command parliament. The economy — a weakening lira and double-digit inflation — featured prominently, as did the consolidation of power under the new system.
The AKP's loss of its sole majority was a notable symbolic shift, making the party reliant on the MHP and giving its nationalist ally significant leverage over policy. Together the People's Alliance commanded 344 seats, comfortably above the 301 needed, ensuring Erdoğan a friendly parliament to accompany his presidential victory. The İYİ Party's emergence and the HDP's resilience pointed to a more fragmented opposition landscape.
Against November 2015, when the AKP had won 317 of 550 seats outright, the 2018 result showed the party slipping below a single-party majority even as the enlarged alliance system preserved its hold on government — a foretaste of its further decline in 2023.
The most significant newcomer was the Good Party (İYİ), founded only months earlier by Meral Akşener after she broke with the MHP over its support for the executive presidency. Positioning itself as a secular-nationalist alternative that opposed Erdoğan without embracing the Kurdish movement, it won nearly 10% and 43 seats at its first attempt, joining the CHP-led Nation Alliance and giving the opposition a foothold among nationalist voters who had previously had nowhere to go but the MHP.
Despite the imprisonment of its former co-leaders and a campaign waged under severe constraints, the HDP again cleared the 10% threshold on its own — without the protection of an alliance — winning 67 seats. Its survival denied the People's Alliance the larger majority it might otherwise have enjoyed and kept a pro-Kurdish bloc at the heart of Turkish parliamentary politics, a persistent obstacle to the government's ambitions in the Kurdish-majority south-east of the country.
Turnout of 86.22% mirrored the presidential vote held the same day, reflecting the high engagement typical of Turkish elections and the significance of inaugurating the new parliamentary order.
Although the new constitution stripped parliament of its power to make or break governments, the 2018 assembly remained an important arena. It retained authority over legislation and the budget, the power to investigate and to call ministers to account, and — with a sufficient majority — the ability to launch impeachment proceedings or to trigger simultaneous early elections of both itself and the president. By securing a comfortable People's Alliance majority alongside Erdoğan's presidential win, the government ensured that none of these levers could be turned against it, completing the consolidation of power that the 2017 referendum had begun and giving the new presidential system a compliant legislature from its very first day.
Supreme Election Council of Turkey (YSK) — ysk.gov.tr.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.