29 May 2016•Update: 30 May 2016
ANKARA
Turkey’s new government won a parliamentary vote of confidence on Sunday.
Prime Minister and ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party chairman Binali Yildirim’s government received 315 votes while 138 lawmakers voted against the administration.
The party has 317 deputies in the 550-seat Grand National Assembly. Only 453 deputies attended Sunday's vote.
In a statement earlier, the AK Party said one of its deputies for Bolu, Ali Ercoskun, was unable to attend the vote due to duties overseas; the remaining deputy is the speaker of parliament and is excluded from voting.
On May 5, former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu and his cabinet resigned and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accepted.
Yildirim, 60, who was the sole candidate to run for the party’s leadership became AK Party chairman and Turkey’s new prime minister on May 22. He later revealed a new cabinet.
Following Sunday’s vote, Yildirim made a speech of thanks in parliament, saying that “our new government is everyone’s government”.
“We will move to further enhance our democracy; we will develop more human rights and freedoms. We will also work day and night for our nation's unity, togetherness and brotherhood,” he added.
The new cabinet also paid a visit to the Ankara mausoleum of Turkey’s first president – Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – after Yildirim’s speech.
