Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's hopes of assuming greater powers has suffered a serious blow after the ruling AK Party failed to win an outright majority in a parliamentary election, preliminary results showed.
With 97% of ballots counted, the AKP had taken 40.8% of the vote on Sunday, according to broadcaster CNN Turk - a result which will leave it struggling to form a stable government for the first time since it came to power more than a decade ago.
"We expect a minority government and an early election," a senior AKP official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
The atmosphere outside the AKP's headquarters in Ankara was muted. Several hundred supporters chanted for Erdogan, the party's founder, but there was little sign of the massive crowds that gathered under its balcony after past election victories.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) was on track to take almost 13% of the vote, according to CNN Turk. Thousands of jubilant Kurds flooded the streets of the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, setting off fireworks and waving flags at the prospect of it clearing the threshold to enter parliament for the first time.
HDP co-leader Selahattin Demirtas ruled out a coalition with the AKP and said election results had put an end to talk of the stronger presidential powers championed by Erdogan.
"The discussion of an executive presidency and dictatorship have come to an end in Turkey," he told a news conference in Istanbul, describing the outcome as a victory "for those who want a pluralist and civil new constitution".
Erdogan, Turkey's most popular modern leader but also its most divisive, had hoped for a crushing victory for the AKP, to allow it to change the constitution and create a more powerful United States-style presidency. To do that, it would have needed to win two-thirds of the seats in parliament.
Its failure to win an overall majority marks an end to 12 years of uninterrupted, stable single-party rule and is a setback for both Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.
While constitutionally required as president to stay above party politics, Erdogan had held rallies throughout a confrontational campaign.
The two men portrayed the election as a choice between a "new Turkey" and a return to a history marked by short-lived coalition governments, economic instability and coups by a military whose influence Erdogan has now reined in.
Davutoglu vowed to take all necessary measures to prevent harm to Turkey's political stability.
"Everyone should see that the AKP is the winner and leader of these elections," he said in a speech to supporters from the balcony of the AKP headquarters in Ankara. "No one should try to build a victory from an election they lost."
The results indicated that the HDP, with its roots in Kurdish nationalism, had succeeded in widening its appeal beyond its Kurdish core vote to centre-left and secularist elements disillusioned with Erdogan.
It is now likely to play a significant role in parliament, particularly trying to advance a two-year-old peace process between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which first took up arms in 1984.
The right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), long seen as the AKP's most likely partner if it tried to form a coalition government, took close to 17% of the vote.
But the senior AKP official said a coalition with the MHP was unlikely, and that the ruling party would rather go it alone and try to build support back up ahead of a new, early election.
