Turkey's Ruling Party Wins 3rd Term

     The Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party has been reelected for an unprecedented¹ third consecutive² term. The party increased its votes securing just over 50% of the ballots³ cast. But the prime minister fell well short of his goal of a two-thirds parliamentary majority.

    Supporters of the Justice and Development party began their celebration early.  As soon as results started to come through, it was clear the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was set for a big victory. His party, campaigning on a booming economy, secured just over 50% of the vote, an improvement on its 2007 landslide⁴ victory. Mr. Erdogan, addressing his supporters at his party headquarters in Ankara, reached out to the whole country.

    He said "This is a victory for Turkey. This is a victory for democracy, for stability, for peace.  This is a victory for all our 74 million people."But the success, observers say, will be a little bittersweet. The prime minister fell more than 40 seats short of his declared goal of a two-thirds parliamentary majority, which is needed to replace the 1982 constitution, written by Turkey's then military rulers.  A new constitution was a key electoral pledge. But there was growing concern both in and outside Turkey that if Mr. Erdogan achieved that goal, he would have had too much power.  Mr. Erdogan even failed to secure the 330 seats needed to submit constitutional reforms to a referendum.

    Mr. Erdogan did not realize his goal largely because candidates supported by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy party defeated candidates from the prime minister's party. The pro-Kurdish party increased its representation from 20 to more than 30 seats.

    Observers say the election has served to underline the increasing power of Turkey's Kurdish rights movement. The Kurdish rights issue is predicted to be one of most important and contentious⁵ aspects of any new constitution. While the prime minister still has a massive parliamentary majority of more than 100 seats, he  will now have to seek support from at least another party to pass a new constitution.(本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑)

1 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

2 consecutive   

adj.连续的，联贯的，始终一贯的

参考例句：

• It has rained for four consecutive days.已连续下了四天雨。
• The policy of our Party is consecutive.我党的政策始终如一。

3 ballots   

n.投票表决( ballot的名词复数 )；选举；选票；投票总数v.（使）投票表决( ballot的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• They're counting the ballots. 他们正在计算选票。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The news of rigged ballots has rubbed off much of the shine of their election victory. 他们操纵选票的消息使他们在选举中获得的胜利大为减色。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 landslide   

n.(竞选中)压倒多数的选票；一面倒的胜利

参考例句：

• Our candidate is predicated to win by a landslide.我们的候选人被预言将以绝对优势取胜。
• An electoral landslide put the Labour Party into power in 1945.1945年工党以压倒多数的胜利当选执政。

5 contentious   

adj.好辩的，善争吵的

参考例句：

• She was really not of the contentious fighting sort.她委实不是好吵好闹的人。
• Since then they have tended to steer clear of contentious issues.从那时起，他们总想方设法避开有争议的问题。