ANKARA
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said the period of coalitions in Turkish political history ended 12 years ago when his ruling Justice and Development or AK Party came to power alone.
His remarks on Tuesday came as political parties accelerated their election efforts and rallies, with less than a month to go for Turkey's parliamentary elections on June 7.
Davutoglu stressed that he did not deem it likely for a coalition government in Turkey after the elections.
"Turkey has never seen a success story under the rule of coalitions in any way," he told a late night live interview on a joint broadcast of private ATV&A Haber networks.
The premier maintained that the success stories in Turkish political history were all experienced during single-party rule marked with stability.
He was referring to four single-party periods: the first was the ten-year Democrat Party rule under Adnan Menderes until the 1960 military coup that ended in his execution, and the second was the Justice Party government led by Suleyman Demirel between 1965 and 1969.
The third was Turgut Ozal's Motherland Party government between 1983 and 1991, and the last one is the current AK Party government since 2002, Davutoglu said.
The prime minister argued that the era of coalitions ended in 2002 as the opposition parties have failed to come up with strong alternatives to his ruling party.
"But, the Turkish people will definitely make us pay if we fail or make a mistake," he said.
Speaking of no specific vote rate goal for June elections, he emphasized that their criterion for elections success is to remain as the ruling party by increasing their votes.
"The secret behind our success till now has been the fact that we speak the same language as the people,” he added.
The AK Party was victorious in last year’s March local elections and its then leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan won the presidential election in August 2014.
In the 2011 general election, the AK Party received 49 percent of the votes.
The party has overseen an economic boost that almost tripled national income over the course of a decade, a power that was focused mainly on building Turkey's infrastructure at home and influence abroad.
Approximately 56 million Turkish citizens are eligible to vote next month in the country's 25th general election to choose 550 lawmakers for the parliament. Candidates are representing 20 political parties.
Turkey held general elections every five years until a 2007 constitutional change, which set the elections to every four years.
