June–July 2015 Turkish Parliament Speaker election

The speaker of the 24th Parliament, Cemil Çiçek, formally handed over his role to Deniz Baykal on 23 June 2015, since Baykal (At age 77) was the oldest member of the new parliament and was thus constitutionally entitled to act as temporary speaker until the new speaker was elected. Baykal was later also nominated as the CHP's candidate for speaker, which was controversial since his role as acting speaker allegedly barred him from campaigning of voting in the election. Amid speculation that Baykal could resign in order to focus on his election campaign, he issued a statement that there was no constitutional regulation that barred him from both continuing as acting speaker and campaigning for election, but would not vote for himself out of convention.[6] He confirmed that he would also be presiding over the electoral proceedings as acting speaker.[7]

The CHP also claimed that İsmet Yılmaz should have resigned from his position as Minister of National Defence during his election campaign.[8]

Since no party has a majority in the new 25th Parliament, this speaker election was the most unpredictable in decades. In the previous elections held under the AKP majority government era (2002-2015), parties such as the CHP did not usually put forward a candidate due to the certainty of the victory of the AKP's nominee. All four parties represented in parliament put forward a candidate in this election, leading to speculation over tactics and possible alliances during the voting process. There were also hopes that any alliances and cases of tactical voting in the election would possibly point to which parties would form the next coalition government.

Tactical voting attempts were likely to begin in the crucial third round, which determined the two candidates that will contest the fourth and final round. No candidate was expected to win in the first three rounds. There were rumours that up to 60 AKP MPs were planning to vote for the HDP candidate Dengir Mir Mehmet Fırat in order to eliminate the CHP candidate Deniz Baykal, which would mean that the two candidates contesting the fourth round would have been the AKP and HDP candidate. Since the MHP were highly unlikely to vote for Fırat, this would have guaranteed Yılmaz's victory.[9] However, such a situation did not materialise and all parties supported their own candidates in the third round. There was speculation that the opposition (the CHP, MHP and HDP) would all vote for Baykal.[8] However, the MHP stated that they would not vote for Baykal if the HDP supported him. The MHP then announced that they would be casting invalid or blank votes in the final round, thereby effectively guaranteeing Yılmaz's victory.[1] The MHP also called for the CHP to support their own candidate Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, who was the CHP-MHP joint presidential candidate for the 2014 presidential election.

Temporary speaker Deniz Baykal formally handed over his role to İsmet Yılmaz shortly after the final round. HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtaş criticised the MHP's decision to cast blank votes in the final round, claiming that they had indirectly handed over the role of Speaker to the AKP. He also claimed that the result was an indication of an AKP-MHP coalition.[10]

CHP spokesperson Haluk Koç criticised the MHP, stating that it had become evident who the 'seat supplier' was. This was a reference to MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli's criticism of CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu's offer of the post of Prime Minister during coalition negotiations. Koç claimed that the MHP had positioned itself close to the AKP despite heavy criticism of the party during the general election campaign and wished the two parties well in their future relationship.[11]