ANKARA
A third round of voting for the post of Turkish parliament speaker has yielded no clear result as all four candidates fail to secure a simple majority.
Deputies reconvened at the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara to elect the speaker for the 25th term on Wednesday afternoon.
The third round of voting took place after no clear winner emerged in the first two phases of the election on Tuesday.
Four candidates are competing for the post: Ismet Yilmaz, 53, from the Justice and Development (AK) Party; Deniz Baykal, 76, from the Republican People's Party (CHP); Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, 71, from the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP); and Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat, 71, from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).
A total of 259 votes were cast for Yilmaz while Baykal got 129 votes. Ihsanoglu got 80 and Firat received 78 votes.
The fourth and final round is underway as a run-off between Yilmaz and Baykal, the two candidates who received the highest number of votes in the third round.
In accordance with the Turkish constitution, the election is being conducted via secret ballot among 550 deputies.
In the first round, a total of 256 votes were cast for Yilmaz while Baykal got 125. Ihsanoglu and Firat both received 81 votes.
According to the second-round results, Yilmaz won 256 votes while Baykal took 128. Ihsanoglu and Firat received 80 votes each.
A candidate requires two-thirds majority, or at least 367 votes out of the 550 deputies to be declared a winner in the first two rounds, while a simple majority is enough in the third round.
Earlier on Wednesday, MHP leader Devlet Bahceli announced that his party would cast invalid votes if its candidate for parliament speaker did not move onto the fourth round of voting.
“We will vote for our own candidate in the fourth round,” Bahceli told journalists after his party’s group meeting in Ankara.
HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtas stated that his party had not decided yet to support any candidate other than its own.
"There has been no discussion within the party to support another candidate," Demirtas said, adding that the HDP’s deputies would vote according to their conscience.
