ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Turkey’s parliament approved the early election date of June 24 in a vote on Friday.
The bill calling for a snap election was passed by 386 members of the ruling AKP, the opposition CHP, and the nationalist MHP, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.
Pro-Kurdish HDP walked out of the parliament in protest when it came time to vote.
The election will be the first after constitutional amendments approved last April introduced an executive presidency.
“I feel honoured to be the last prime minister of the Turkish Republic,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told the parliament.
HDP opposed the presidential system, saying it puts all the power into President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hands. The party has criticized the government’s crackdown on opposition under the country’s prolonged state of emergency that was introduced after the failed coup of July 2016.
“June 24 will be the day of reckoning,” HDP co-chair Sezai Temelli told supporters in Mersin on Thursday.
The bill calling for a snap election was passed by 386 members of the ruling AKP, the opposition CHP, and the nationalist MHP, according to state-run Anadolu Agency.
Pro-Kurdish HDP walked out of the parliament in protest when it came time to vote.
The election will be the first after constitutional amendments approved last April introduced an executive presidency.
“I feel honoured to be the last prime minister of the Turkish Republic,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told the parliament.
HDP opposed the presidential system, saying it puts all the power into President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hands. The party has criticized the government’s crackdown on opposition under the country’s prolonged state of emergency that was introduced after the failed coup of July 2016.
“June 24 will be the day of reckoning,” HDP co-chair Sezai Temelli told supporters in Mersin on Thursday.
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