The Armenian community of Turkey is disappointed with the results of the May 14 elections, according to outgoing Armenian member of the Turkish parliament, Garo Paylan, Armenpress reported.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, having formed an alliance with what Paylan described as “nationalists and radicals” succeeded in garnering enough votes to secure a parliamentary majority. According to Paylan, this means that Turkey will become even more nationalistic, while a more nationalistic Turkey will normalize relations with Armenia with greater difficulties.
“We must not spare any effort in convincing Turkey to establish peace with Armenia,” Paylan told Armenpress in Istanbul.
“Armenians in Turkey are already in fear. Before 2015, we used to talk about our issues, but after that the Armenians became more silent. We were hoping that something would change as a result of these elections, but that didn’t happen. Unfortunately, Armenians will become more voiceless in this period,” Paylan said.
Presidential rivals Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Kemal Kilicdaroglu will have a runoff election after both failed to win 50% of the votes on Sunday.
However, Erdogan’s alliance garnered 49.46% of the votes in the parliamentary elections, which means that they will have 322 seats in the new Turkish parliament. His main rival’s bloc won 35.02% of the votes and will have 213 seats.