More than 42.5 million Turks began to cast their ballots for the parliamentary elections at 7:00 a.m. local time (0400 GMT) on Sunday.
The Turkish Prime Minister and Chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will cast his vote in
Turkey's largest city Istanbul, while President Ahmet Necdet Sezer will do so in Ankara.
Fourteen political parties and a total of 7,394 candidates, including 699 independent candidates, will run for the elections.
More than 42.5 million registered voters of a 70-million-plus population will cast votes at nearly 158,700 polling stations in 85 electoral zones across the country to send their representatives to the 550-seated parliament.
Voting will end at 5:00 p.m. local time (1400 GMT) Sunday.
In Ankara, more than 2.9 million voters will cast their ballots for 29 candidates, while in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city and main commercial hub, 7.4 million voters will decide 70 seats, the largest number in the country.
Residents of the Aegean port city of Izmir and the southeastern city of Diyarbakir will elect 24 and 10 parliament members respectively.
The elections were scheduled to be held on Nov. 4 but were brought forward almost four months because of the failure to elect a new president after the main opposition party, the Republican People's Party, boycotted the presidential election in late April and early May.
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a close ally of Erdogan, was the only candidate for the presidential election. But Gul abandoned his presidential bid after parliament failed for a second time to vote him into office.
Source: Xinhua
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