With less than four months to go before the June 7 general elections in Turkey, Istanbul deputy and vice chairman from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), Mustafa Şentop, announced on Tuesday at the Election Affairs Evaluation meeting that the number of deputy candidate nominees for the AK Party is at 6,223, which is 600 more applications than the 2011 elections. At the meeting Şentop emphasized the importance of the June elections and said: "The upcoming elections are the most significant of all and will determine Turkey's future." Among the 6,223 deputy candidate nominees, the vice chairman added that 1,040 are female. Commenting on the profile of the deputy candidates, Şentop said that while 73 percent of the candidate nominees are university graduates, about 7 percent to 8 percent are either secondary or elementary school graduates. As the AK Party is aiming for diverse deputy candidate nominees in order to represent all segments of society, Deputy Prime Minister and AK Party spokesman Bülent Arınç recently affirmed: "There should be more candidates from minorities as well as women and young deputies." While the AK Party announced its record numbers of applicants, local sources reported that the Republican People's Party (CHP) was unable to reach the anticipated application numbers and the party has extended its application period for deputy candidates until March 1. The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) is yet to announce the number of deputy candidate applicants. The Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) is seeking to pass Turkey's 10 percent election threshold and announced on February 24 that there has been a total of 32 deputy candidate nominees from the southeastern city of Şanlıurfa and the deadline for applications is March 2. Furthermore, HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş earlier urged all leftist parties to show their stance against the ruling AK Party government in the "most critical" elections in the history of Turkey.