Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Prime Minister, secured a landslide election triumph late on Sunday night, winning a second five-year term with nearly half of the national vote after being forced by veiled threats of a military overthrow to call an early ballot.

In what was seen as the most crucial Turkish election in at least a generation, Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 47 per cent of the vote, giving it a majority of about 130 in the 550-seat parliament in Ankara.

The vote vindicated Mr Erdogan’s gamble in calling the election four months early after the military, the opposition, and the constitutional court stymied his choice of president in April. As he said in a magnanimous victory speech last night in Ankara, it was the first time in more than 50 years a Turkish governing party had been returned with a bigger share of the vote.

The AKP put on 13 per cent compared with its 2002 breakthrough.

The CHP, or Republican People’s party, came second with 21 per cent; the only other party to enter parliament, the rightwing nationalist MHP, took 14  per cent . Turks turned out in searing heat, deserting resorts on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts to award Mr Erdogan his thumping majority.

More than 80 per cent of the electorate voted in what Mr Erdogan declared a big test for democracy — an implicit dig at the generals and their political allies, whose attempt to undermine the government ended in fiasco.

While Mr Erdogan’s parliamentary majority is more than comfortable, his seat tally fell by 22 because more parties and independents got into Parliament.

The victory set the scene for an unprecedented 10-year rule by the charismatic Prime Minister who first emerged from the conservative, religious right. Suspicion about his alleged religious agenda fuelled a vituperative campaign.

European Union (EU) membership remained a commitment, he said, challenging the growing hostility to Turkey’s EU ambitions among centre-right governments in Europe.

Mr Erdogan has been confronted by the military, the Opposition and million-strong street protests in recent weeks.

The scale of his victory shored up his government’s legitimacy both domestically and internationally.