Ziya Öztürkler was on Monday elected as the speaker of parliament at the sixth attempt, bringing to an end a political crisis which lasted 42 days and saw 16 rounds of voting in ‘parliament’ and two premature declarations of victory.

Fazilet Özdenefe, MP from the main opposition Republican Turkish Party (CTP) on the otherhand was re-elected as Deputy Speaker.

Öztürkler, who belongs to the ruling coalition party the UBP, was elected with 27 votes in his favour and 21 votes against among his parliamentary colleagues on Monday afternoon.

After being elected, he gave a speech to parliament, apologising to everyone for what he described as a difficult process, and stressing the importance of getting down to the business of debating the state budget, which was due to start in the parliamentary finance committee a week ago but was delayed due to the argument over his role.

Özturkler had believed he had been elected to the role a month ago, when the ruling coalition announced that he had received 26 votes in his favour and 23 against.

However, the opposition insisted that given that three of the ballot papers counted by the ruling coalition as votes in Öztürkler’s favour had more than one mark on them, they were invalid.

Özdenefe also thanked the MPs for their votes and expressed the hope that the new term in parliament will be beneficial for all.