Turkish parliamentary elections start with expectations of another Erdogan victory

Turks went to the polls on Sunday in parliamentary elections, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan seeking to return to office for a third consecutive term.

Polling stations in the country of 74 million opened first in the east, including in the restive Kurdish region. There were no immediate reports of trouble. Polls opened later in the west, including in the capital Ankara and Istanbul.

Pollsters mainly expect the Justice and Development Party (AKP), bolstered by economic stability in the country, to grab an easy victory with a minor loss of votes compared to its 47 percent showing in the 2007 elections.

Among a population of some 73 million, more than 50 million voters were eligible to cast their ballots Sunday in almost 200,000 polling stations nationwide, to renew the 550-seat parliament.

Casting his vote at a primary school being used as a polling station on the Asian side of the Bosphorus straits in Istanbul, Erdogan said the election was the time for the people to speak. "I hope that the elections will contribute to strengthening of peace, rights and freedoms," he told the television cameras, as his wife and daughter stood nearby.

The only doubt hanging over Sunday's vote was about the margin of victory. Erdogan needs more than a simple majority to be certain of pushing through plans for a new constitution to replace one written in 1982, two years after a military coup. He says the new charter will be based on democratic and pluralistic principles that will bring Turkey closer to EU standards.

At least 330 seats would give AK the power to call a referendum on rewriting the constitution. If it gets more than a two-thirds majority, it will be able to change the constitution without resorting to a plebiscite. "These elections are not about who wins, but about whether AK will win a strong majority to rewrite the constitution," Sinan Ulgen, from the Istanbul-based Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies, told Reuters.

The main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) under the leadership of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is expected to take up to 30 percent of the vote, according to pollsters.