Turnout: 87.05%
About this election
Turkey elected its 600-seat Grand National Assembly on 14 May 2023, alongside the presidential vote. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) finished first with 35.61% and 268 seats — its weakest result since coming to power in 2002 — but its People's Alliance retained a majority with the help of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP, 10.07%, 50) and allied parties, holding 323 of the 600 seats. The Republican People's Party (CHP) won 25.33% and 169, the pro-Kurdish Green Left Party (YSP) 8.82% and 61, and the Good Party (İYİ) 9.69% and 43. Turnout was 87.05%.
The election was the second held under the executive-presidential system, with parliamentary and presidential votes on the same day. Although parliament no longer forms the government, it legislates, sets the budget and can scrutinise the executive, and control of it shapes a president's freedom of action. The assembly's 600 members serve a five-year term aligned with the presidency.
Members were elected by D'Hondt proportional representation in provincial constituencies. Ahead of 2023 the national threshold was lowered from 10% to 7%, and the alliance system again allowed small parties to enter parliament on a larger partner's coat-tails. This let a cluster of minor partners — the Islamist New Welfare Party (YRP), the left-wing Workers' Party of Turkey (TİP) and others — win seats, while the two big blocs, the AKP-led People's Alliance and the CHP-led Nation Alliance, structured the contest.
The AKP remained the largest party despite its decline, dependent on the MHP and smaller allies for its majority. The CHP led the Nation Alliance; the İYİ Party held the nationalist opposition vote; and the Kurdish movement contested the election as the Green Left Party (YSP) after its predecessor, the HDP, faced a closure case in the Constitutional Court.
Like the simultaneous presidential race, the parliamentary election was fought amid the aftermath of the February 2023 earthquakes and a severe cost-of-living crisis, conditions that had been expected to weaken the government. Yet the People's Alliance held its parliamentary majority even as the AKP's own vote fell, partly thanks to the discipline of its coalition and the fragmentation of the opposition.
By keeping control of parliament while Erdoğan won the presidency, the People's Alliance secured unified command of both branches for another five years. The AKP's slide to its lowest-ever share underlined the long-term erosion of its dominance, but the alliance system and the lowered threshold cushioned the blow. The strong showing of the New Welfare Party on the religious right, and of the Workers' Party on the left, pointed to a diversifying political landscape.
Against 2018, the AKP shed about seven points and the opposition CHP gained, but the overall balance — a People's Alliance majority facing a divided opposition — was preserved, confirming the resilience of Erdoğan's electoral coalition even under acute economic strain.
The pro-Kurdish movement contested the election under a borrowed name, the Green Left Party (YSP), because its main vehicle, the HDP, faced a case in the Constitutional Court seeking its closure and the banning of hundreds of its politicians. Running under the YSP banner protected its candidates from the risk that the party would be dissolved mid-campaign with its state funding frozen. Despite this disruption and years of pressure — the imprisonment of leaders and the removal of dozens of its elected mayors — the movement again won 61 seats, remaining the third-largest force in parliament.
The lowered 7% threshold and the entrenched alliance system produced a more crowded chamber. On the religious right, the New Welfare Party won five seats and would later extract concessions from the government; on the left, the Workers' Party of Turkey entered parliament with four seats won within the Labour and Freedom Alliance. The proliferation of small parties operating inside the two big blocs reflected a Turkish politics that was at once tightly polarised between two camps and internally more diverse than the headline figures suggested.
Turnout of 87.05% matched the presidential vote held the same day and ranked among the highest in the world, reflecting Turkey's deep tradition of electoral participation.
A particular question hung over the eleven provinces devastated by the February earthquakes, home to some 14 million people, where polling stations had to be improvised and millions of voters had been displaced. Many observers expected anger at the slow and uneven emergency response to cost the government dearly. In the event the AKP and its allies held up relatively well across much of the disaster zone, a result variously attributed to enduring loyalty, the rapid promises of reconstruction, and the practical difficulties the opposition faced in reaching uprooted communities — and one that did much to secure the People's Alliance its majority.
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.