Final candidate lists for Turkey’s snap polls announced

ANKARA – Anadolu Agency

DHA photo

Turkey’s Supreme Election Board has officially announced candidate lists of all Turkish political parties who will run in the upcoming snap elections of Nov. 1.

The lists, approved by the board and published in the Official Gazette late Sept. 28, consist of candidates from 16 political parties who will run in the polls.

There are a total of 48 new names compared to lists unveiled on Sept. 23. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) changed five of its candidates, while the Republican People’s Party (CHP) added 13 new names to the list. The other two parties, Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), changed 12 and 18 of their candidates, respectively, on their final lists.

The list also has 21 independent parliamentary candidates from across Turkey.

Snap elections in Turkey will be held on Nov. 1 nearly five months after an election on June 7 saw no single party win an overall majority.

Coalition talks between the AKP and the other three parties did not produce any results.

A provisional government was established by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu on Aug. 28 to steer Turkey through a rerun of June’s polls.      

Turkey is divided into 85 constituencies in 81 provinces for a total of 550 MPs.

The election board will print more than 75 million voting papers for the snap polls.