Ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) deputy Mustafa Şentop became the new Turkish parliament speaker after a vote held on Sunday.
Şentop garnered 336 votes out of 600 in the parliament, as the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) endorsed him.
His main rival, Engin Altay, deputy group chair of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), received 124 votes, the Hürriyet Daily News reported.
They were followed by Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) candidate Serpil Kemalbay Pekgözegü with 46 votes and İYİ (Good) Party’s nominee İmam Hüseyin Filiz with 33 votes.
Binali Yıldırım, the former parliament speaker, resigned on June 18 after his nomination for mayor of the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality was announced.
Şentop, 51, was elected as a deputy from the northwestern province of Tekirdağ in the June 24, 2018 elections. He earned a bachelor’s degree at the Istanbul University Faculty of Law and received his master’s and doctorate from Istanbul’s Marmara University.